


Moon River

by ars_amatoria



Category: Call Me By Your Name (2017), Call Me By Your Name - All Media Types, Call Me by Your Name - André Aciman
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Fix-It, Fluff and Angst, Fluff and Smut, Happy Ending, M/M, Minor Character Death, Minor Original Character(s), Oliver’s POV, Porn With Plot, Shitty parents are shitty, ft. Elio’s POV
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-02-26
Updated: 2018-08-07
Packaged: 2019-03-24 12:05:02
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 29
Words: 79,407
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13810824
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ars_amatoria/pseuds/ars_amatoria
Summary: "Wherever you're goin', I'm goin' your way" / Moon River, 1961New York, 1988. A divine second opportunity, told through Oliver's eyes.An Elio + Oliver reunion, and I imagine what Oliver's life is like.-- Story on hiatus! --





	1. Sick Miracle

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Love My Way](https://archiveofourown.org/works/12716322) by [Eva_Marlowe](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eva_Marlowe/pseuds/Eva_Marlowe). 



> Hello!! My first time writing Oliver, or really writing anything at all haha. As a side note, I don't go to uni at Columbia or in the US at all lmao so do excuse inaccuracies etc.
> 
> P.S. spot the Macbeth reference hahahah

_New York, October 1988._

 

 ****Elio was sprawled on the bed, his arms draped over the width and curled legs formed a pleasant contrast with the rectangularity. The sheets were crumpled and coming loose, highlighted by the pale streetlights, and the sensuousness of the fabric echoed the smooth flesh of his thighs. I seldom wished to be more artistically inclined, but it was moments like this that made me wish that I could paint or sculpt just as well as I could write. To commit what I was feeling to solidity and memory through doing and making.

 

We were together again but it felt like a desperate, stolen moment. A blip in the universe. A momentary lapse in judgement, an act of recklessness, a slip of the divine hand. God had somehow allowed Elio back into my life, like a sick miracle. Five years on, the road of my life had cruised to a pleasant banality from the minor wreck that was the six months following my return from Crema. I taught more or less the same courses at Columbia each term, worked on whatever book I was writing in my remaining time, suffered through school holidays with family or took solitary vacations, participated in a sexual life peppered with spontaneous encounters involving men and women who were possessed by infatuation. I was an objective observer of my own life, my relationships almost scientific and experimental as I simply took account of what others thought of and saw in me.

 

Competent and intelligent enough, I could tell from the gaze of my colleagues: a knowing nod when I was in the depths of marking a tall stack of term papers, a chummy smile before leaving the department at weekends. Admired and idolised: the wide, excited eyes of the students who insisted on visiting my office hour every week, who smiled too much and laughed too easily. Passive disapproval and impatience from my mother and assorted relatives, eyes shining with perverse anticipation of interjecting with suggestions, comments, ‘constructive’ criticism on my life choices. Boring and even fraudulent, in the gaze of the driven students who loved to argue and who thought I was too young to be credible. Lust and adoration, in the eyes of temporary lovers, in the breaths before the first kiss, before penetration, and before the moment they realised they would never see me again.

 

I was looking and being looked at but I did not feel _seen_ by this carousel of characters. To be seen was to be free, to dissolve the prison bars around my soul, to be unseam’d from the nave to the chaps and bared open to the one who owned it all. I wanted my heart to be cut out, juiced, peeled, segmented, beaten, chopped, smashed till it was an unrecognisable pulp and then _devoured_. It was festering within me, shrivelled cold and dead, yet simultaneously pulsing red and hot like an infection, twisting and aching and racing because it wanted, needed, a way out— because it _did not belong to me_. 

 

And then it had its moment.

 

It tore itself in half, and shot opposite directions in my body: one clogged my throat and wanted oral purging, to be spit out piece by piece, cell by cell, atom by atom in words, kisses, bites, sucks, licks. The other took to my ass and waited, anticipated, could only be taken thrust by thrust, pound by pound, chisel by chisel. It was perverse, it was masochistic, it was me arrested in the gaze of Elio Perlman: Elio Perlman who filled the frame to my office with burgundy blazer shoulders, curly hair, pink lips, and those damned hazel green eyes that _saw_.

 

 

Hi. I looked well. He knew it was my student office hour but could he come in. He was sorry he presumed, he was sorry for showing up, he shouldn’t have come, he could come back later, or never, he was sorry, just sorry and he would never bother—

 

“No,” my lips formed around the syllable, air pushed my vocal chords and it projected from my heart, from my chest and I didn’t even know I had done it until the word rang in my ears and my jaw was hanging empty around its shape. His eyes turned wide and his four consecutive blinks of disbelief punctured through the shroud of disbelief and I realised I had shouted into the stale, dusty, silent Classics hallway. He stood petrified by my volume, his naked-as-ever, honest-as-ever, transparent-as-ever face betraying his instinct to leave in the face of anything less than positive or affirming from me. And before I could—

 

“Is everything alright, professor?” Professor Zetzel stood three-quarters of the way out of his office three doors down, glasses in his right hand and his centre of gravity indicating he was half a heartbeat away from leaving his fortress to give the ‘disruptive student’ at hand a thorough talking down.

 

“Fine. Just fine. Apologies.” I retreat back into my door and Elio has the good sense to follow, if a few beats too late. I close my office door behind him, pausing by the door to listen and its a full five seconds before Zetzel decides to let it go and shut his own office door.

 

When I turn back Elio is sitting in the old leather chair in front of my desk, as if he was any other student. As if he was any other visitor. Any other passerby. As if he ever _could_ be.

 

I pace slowly around the desk and sit in my chair, stiffly as if not to disturb even a speck of dust and finally look up. He looks the same and yet not: the dissonance is jarring. Older, hair longer, dressed better, lit by the cold and smog-filtered New York sun instead of the impossibly warm glow of summer, Crema-Italian sun filtered by sweat and desire. 

 

“Can I really stay? You must have students who need to see you, I shouldn’t take up your time.” Ironic, time hasn’t really moved for me since the last time I saw you.

 

“You just missed my regulars. We won’t be interrupted.”

 

“Okay,” he looks down and clenches his jaw, it’s stronger than when he was seventeen, “I’m not really sure…I don’t…”

 

“You don’t have to.” He looks up. My heart is racing and my breath is quick. To speak or to die. To speak or to die.

 

“I…” Elio, despite whatever he liked to say about himself would always be the braver, “I’m here.”

 

“Yes.” The sibilance of the syllable is soothing, completing and the slow closing of the mouth and lips meeting together verses the emptiness that follows its antonym somehow lends itself to the present moment, to affirmation, to believing mind, body and soul that he is here. 

 

“You…”

 

“Me?”

 

“You’re in the States.”

 

“I’m here doing my masters.” Where have the years _gone_?

 

“Here,” I blink “ _Here_ here, or _here_?” The most idiotic five sounds I have ever uttered. Elio’s face splits into the most cherubic, lovely, sweet, euphoric smile I have ever seen.

 

“ _Here_ here. Research with the music department.”

 

“You picked here because,”

 

“Yes,” what a word, _what a word!_ It shone on my heart, coloured my soul, filled in the gaps left by five years of questions and made its way out by way of my lips— the shit-eating grin.

 

“I just wanted to… be near you again. In any capacity. We haven’t talked directly in years, and I don’t want you to think I want— I expect… I expected for us to just pick up, I just,” he stopped speaking, and it must have been because of the look on my face. His eyes continued where he stopped, and it seemed he was realising that it was enough for now, enough that he was here. We were quiet for a while. It was easier to let the words and thoughts transpire of their own accord, it was easy because we saw each other. And even though we weren’t finished, after all there were things that did need to be said, everything was okay. Because in his gaze, I could just be. And I hadn’t _been_ , hadn’t truly been since Rome.

 

Like a sick miracle, I was allowed to breathe and live and be and move again, unstuck from some purgatory, but just as quickly as it happened, it could all stick again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading!! I'm having a great time writing some Elio unreliable-narrator-ness for Oliver's side of the story. Please do let me know what you think!!


	2. Long Day's Journey into Night

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whoooo writing this chapter made me sweat. Small warning: I have taken some liberty with filling in Oliver's life, but I hope you like it!!

We elected to leave my office. It was too official, we were wary of being overheard but most of all, though I did not say it so expressly, I could not marry the images of my office and Elio. It was almost like some sort of theatre set, and any moment now stage hands would pull away the walls, reveal them to be cardboard and— I didn’t even know what it would reveal. Crema? Rome? The villa? A filthy alleyway because this must be some accidental acid dream?

 

I led the way out of the department and out of the building. Met with the wall of noise that was campus at mid-afternoon, I paused and realised once again that Elio was with me and started walking to the only place that I thought I could feel normal: the rocks by the water in Riverside Park.

 

When we sat down, I thought I could see a smirk on his face. “You, rocks, and water.” 

 

I nodded, and exhaled a wry smile. I came to this spot even during the early stages of writing my doctoral thesis, and the shore in Italy was like an upgrade. It was the same—me, rocks, and water— but, of course they were universes apart. Instead of the ocean, it was Hudson River, instead of the inky black and barely being able to make out where the sky ended and the water started, it was New Jersey. But where the differences usually made my heart twinge just a little bit, it made this moment easier. We had sat on rocks by some water, next to each other, with no distance between our hearts before and we could do it again.

 

“How’s your father?”

 

“Fine. Great, he’s great. He mentions you.” Samuel Perlman was an absolute devil for this, but _God love him_.

 

“So that’s how,”

 

“Yeah,” he looks down, and its hard to believe how important, how big he is in my world compared to how small he appears now, hands laced together over his spread knees. “sorry about…”

 

“Marilyn,” a quick smile to ease the awkwardness. He looks up at the name, a minuscule purse of his lips, and his eyes tighten. Jealous, but not sure he’s allowed. “she’s married now. I’m happy for her. Nothing to be sorry about.”

 

“How long have you been in New York?”

 

“Since August. I would see you around campus, but I didn’t find you until now because,” I smiled and shook my head. I knew why, but it didn’t matter why. 

 

“I’m glad you’re here.” Echoes of words I spoke many years before. I stood up from my spot, gripped the handle of my briefcase.

 

“Listen, why don’t we meet at the Met tomorrow at four. We could do dinner.” He blinked in surprise and took a breath.

 

“Yeah,” he opened his mouth to say more but I needed to be gone.

 

“Great. I’ll see you on the steps. Later,” I didn’t realise I’d said the word, once again. But I turned and marched away before I could see his face react to it.

 

 _What the fuck just happened_.

 

* * *

 

 

Half a bottle of wine and six hours later, I was calmer and able— _more_ able— to accept that I had spoken to Elio. I wished I had been better prepared, but how does one prepare to speak to one of the most important people in one’s life after five years of radio silence? 

 

I had kept in touch with Professor Perlman intermittently: a card at Hanukkah, a letter or phone call if either one of us had published a new book, and when I bumped into him at an academic conference last January.

 

“Oliver, fancy seeing you here!” He drew me into a hug then, and even in the wave of shock I knew that there was no way he hadn’t seen the guest list beforehand. We made smalltalk about colleagues, my new publication, how was Columbia, he was choosing his new student for the summer, I was still the most memorable but don’t tell anyone he said that.

 

“And your lovely… fiancée?” I had switched my champagne glass to my left hand, the right having clutched it too tightly and leaving the drink too warm: the taste was changed when I took a sip to fill the silence, but of course, what he’d caught on to was that my fingers were still ringless and he’d heard no news. I cleared my throat.

 

“We…separated. About five months ago.” Someone even more socially graceful than Samuel would have had a hard time responding to such a sentence, and it was a few moments before he could say anything.

 

“Well, you know I care, Oliver. If you ever needed to talk. Someone more removed from the situation,” the words would have been hollow coming from anyone else, but somehow even after four years and breaking his son’s heart, he cared.

 

The memory only added to my spiralling. It was too abrupt, everything I had thought and felt and wished and imagined was compressing and converging to _now_ , Thursday October 20th, 1988, 11:03pm and I was supposed to be making adjustments so I could send in my final copy of the AGRE7021 midterm paper to Joanne at the administrator’s office for filing and copying in time for next next week’s exams. It was important, to be sure, but nothing seemed real at the moment in comparison to what had just happened. 

 

It was a solid four rings of the telephone before I got up. I had half a mind not to, but the only people who ever called, and at this hour, were the publishing house or family.

 

“Hello?”

 

“You sound dead on your feet, how much pot have you had, Ol?” 

 

“Just wine. Nice to hear from you too, Marilyn.”

 

“Professor, it’s a school night! Josh asked me to call and ask your opinion on the house we’re renting out in Newport for the holidays, but obviously there’s something more pressing going on with you.” 

 

Marilyn is the niece of my great-aunt by marriage. We grew up in close enough proximity, but as things go in large families, there was no particular friendship. There was an awkward fumbling spin-the-bottle kiss after her bat mitzvah, and the next significant interaction was a drunken night together in the Hamptons after cousin Bradley’s wedding the summer she had just turned 22, a freshly minted Brown University graduate. The trajectory of our relationship was hardly surprising: sex was certainly not low in probability of all the things that could happen between two young good looking people, and a better than average friendship worked to hide the ultimate incompatibility of our personalities, but it ended just the same. Now, Marilyn was a beat of normalcy in the minefield of selfish agendas that made up family relations.

 

“Believe what you want. What’s up with the house?”

 

“Logistics with the bedrooms and hotels and venues and blah blah, you know how he gets with his annual organisational wet dream.” I could picture her sitting at her vanity, the receiver wedged between her ear and shoulder as she prepared for bed in anticipation of Joshua’s usual midnight returns from his practice.

 

“Now, what’s going on with you? You’re intoxicated and alone and its eleven on a Thursday.” 

 

I pause. I blink. I’m chewing the words in my mouth, but to speak them would be to legitimise my inner turmoil.

 

“He… is at Columbia.”

 

“Who? That clingy one who showed up at your book launch? I swear, you should just get Josh to draw up a restraining—”

 

“No,”

 

“Then _who_ are we talking about, Ol, you— Oh. My god. Not— Not _Elio_?” And there he went, out from my dreams and thoughts, from this afternoon, into the present and corroborated in the consciousness of another person, and of all people my ex-fiancée.

 

“Yeah,”

 

“Well damn, Stoneritus, you should have broken out the pot for _this_ one. God. How’d it happen?” I recounted the disaster, and credit to her, Marilyn managed not to scream or interject with more than a few whats and holy-shits.

 

“That’s heavy, Ol. I know nothing I say can help at this point, but for what it’s worth I know you’ll tough it out. And when everything settles down, invite him to a dinner, hmm?”

 

“You’re speaking too soon.”

 

“No, no. It’ll happen. You wait. After all I predicted we’d split eventually.” I laugh at that. She did. She said it once when were stoned out of our minds in her apartment early into the relationship, and again during a fight we had about how long we’d stay engaged before marrying. Maybe she meant more that we’d get divorced eventually, decades down the line, but she’d been right all the same.

 

“Yeah, okay,”

 

“Goodnight, Ol.” 

 

I put down the receiver and laughed to myself. Life hadn’t felt this surreal since I landed in JFK that August in 1983, still tan from the Italian sun, still dressed in loose shorts and a linen shirt, and still tasting bellini, apricot juice, freshly caught seafood. But wasn’t this what I wanted? I felt like a live wire, but isn’t that what I’d been searching for? To be live? A-live, living?

 

Regardless, I had to either accept what felt like absurdity and move on or I’d never finish a conversation with  Elio tomorrow. At least I had suggested the Met. If worse came to worse, I’d just pretend he was one of the statues. That wouldn't be difficult at all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AANNDDD scene. I know I'm dragging it out, I wanna focus on building Oliver's lil world. What do we think of Marilyn? Too much? I picture Elisabeth Moss when I think of her. Not sure how big a part she might have as the story continues but I do love the idea of her. Comments are mega mega appreciated, and thank you for taking the time to read!!


	3. Eros, Amor, (Stupido) Cupido

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello!! Thank you guys so much for all the love. Let me know what you think of how things ~transpired~ in this chapter. Hope you enjoy!!

The ability of humans to adapt and find normalcy is staggering. I got up, shaved, did my hair, picked up my brief case, managed to ride the subway, and before I knew it had arrived in lecture theatre 3B1 with coffee in hand.

 

“Professor, I wanted to talk to you about one more thing you wrote on my paper. I wanted to confirm with you so you can’t say I did it again when you mark the midterm.” Marc sat in the leftmost third of the theatre every week, always somewhere far enough away from the front but close enough that I’d always see him holding his chin with thumb and index finger, calculating. He seemed to get some kind of a kick out of talking back to everything I said. Some weeks he was right and I let him have it, some weeks he was just trying to get a word in in any way possible. 

 

“You came to the office hour yesterday, Marc. Which part is it?”

 

“It’s just that you wrote ‘too vague’ next to my point about the significance of pope Innocent VIII’s curation of the Vatican, and I think it’s a _vague_ comment.” He huffs a chuckle, the kind when the person is annoyed but still trying to remain cordial. 

 

“I’m saying the point lends itself more to a social art historical take, which is not what your argument was about, so you had to water down the point, making it ineffectual. T. J. Clark is a hard act to follow, and if you want to publish things in that direction, Marc, you have to be more thorough and discerning.”

 

A blink, a jutting of his jaw, a step backward.

 

“Fine. Thanks.”

 

“I’m not saying you can’t do it, just that its you go for it or not at all.” He raises his eyebrows and almost rolls his eyes but makes the more prudent choice to simply turn around and make his way to his seat. He was a driven junior, still trying to find his voice in his writing, and if the only way he could do it was using me as some sort of combative sounding board, I guess I’d keep going along with it.

 

I gave my lecture, answered more questions after class, promised I would cover more about a particular artist next week before the exam, and retreated to my office to think. I almost smashed into Zetzel, whose office door, thanks to an architectural mistake made forty years ago during refurbishments, happened to open right into the door to the department.

 

“Oh, Oliver! Sorry about that.” He chuckled, I threw back a chummy smile. “I meant to ask, was everything okay yesterday? It was that Marc kid again, huh? One with the curly hair, skinny.”

 

“Oh, no, it was fine. Sorry about the volume. Nothing serious, he just likes to argue is all.” I was lying and not lying, perhaps only by omission, but how was I supposed to explain that no, he was mistaken, it had just been me shouting involuntarily in reaction to the reappearance of my Italian lover. Zetzel narrowed his eyes, he was hoping to get some kind of information, I could tell.

 

“Well, you know, I can write him up. Insufferable, that one, keeps challenging translations of Horace in my Monday nine o’ clocks.” A breath of relief. This was more about nailing a disruptive student than prying into my life. Though this alternative was still, unfortunately, misguided. 

 

“Okay, pro, I’ll let you know if I need it.” I threw him a finger gun and he took it, gave a wink before shuffling down the hallway to the break room.

 

Back at my desk, I realised what Zetzel had said. He had thought Elio to be Marc, maybe it was just the hair and he was blind as a bat: he couldn’t see you if you stood more than ten feet away even when he had his varifocals on. But the comparison was interesting to consider all the same. Marc had been in one of my freshmen classes two years back and Marilyn had commented during a department party that he, in addition to being the normal sort of pedantic that was not uncommon in this field, probably had a crush on me, which resulted in the relentless dissent. This combined with the most objective similarities between him and Elio: the hair, skinny, pale, made Marc an easy and convenient foil to my date.

 

Marc was like a ‘dark’ counterpart: wrapped in layers of insecurity and pretence, of course they were there only because of age, and eventually he’d come round to himself and drop the chip on his shoulder. But it reminded me of what I saw in Elio. Elio was earnest, inquisitive, endearing, transparent even if he didn’t want to be. Past all our history, the lack of contact all these years and the necessary process now at hand of recalibrating to a rhythm we both felt comfortable in, the core of who Elio was was what mattered to me, was what I had been craving. From there, seeing past the circumstances wouldn’t be too difficult.

 

* * *

 

New York in the autumn afternoon had its own magic. It was mid-fall, and there was something heroic about a low, late-afternoon sun beginning to drop behind the Met that made one realise there was beauty to be found in the concrete jungle too. As I approached from the right of the portico, I could see Elio standing on the steps. He had picked a spot not so high that implied he was going in to the museum soon, but high enough that he had a good vantage point for seeing if I had arrived. 

 

“Hey,” I appeared to his left, one step lower than the one he was standing on, and when he whipped around, he looked so good, my heart skipped at the fact that it was really him, and I could only grin and wrap my arms around his body. I held him to my chest: he felt so familiar, and I hadn’t had the compulsion to simply _hold_ someone in this way for so long— not even Marilyn— that adrenaline coursed through me and my arms didn’t feel like my own.

 

It was a while before Elio moved at all, but I felt him shift: he leaned his face into my shoulder, one hand pressed the small of my back and the other came up under my arm to grip the back of my blazer. I felt and heard his shuddering sigh, and I sobered. The moment was pure bliss, but there was a heavy undercurrent all the same. I was holding him like the time we parted at the train station, and that only rubbed in the reality of our separation, but I was also _holding him_ _again_. Again, again, againagainagainagain.

 

“I might never let go,” he mumbled into my shoulder. I laughed, and could feel the reverberation of the sound in his chest, which was vibrating because of _my_ chest, and _his_ chest was _my_ chest, his, mine, mine, his, chests, _chest_.

 

“I was planning on giving a tour of the Greek and Roman section, but it’ll be hard for you to see over my shoulder once we get off these steps.” He laughed one of his breathy laughs and let go, fingertips lingering just a little before he clasped his hands behind his back. He took a moment, rocked back and forth on his heels a bit, and his lips curled into that little smirk I loved.

 

“Lead the way, professor.” 

 

We made it inside and I said hello to the staff that I knew. The Met was a resource for my research and I taught at least one lesson here every term, but I spent just as much time visiting for myself and to think among the history. It was a way to get my students excited about what they were learning but, more personally, also food for thought and inspiration: individuals throughout history had spent lifetimes developing skills and techniques to make things they felt so strongly about that they could work day in day out on one piece for years. I supposed I was on the other side of that history, writing day in day out about pieces that had been made in different epochs so that people could and would remember what those individuals achieved.

 

“I wonder what secrets they’ve heard all these centuries. Owned by generals and emperors, stuck in the ground for centuries and then placed here. People speaking Japanese and English and French and more all around them.”

 

“Is that what you think about when you look at art?” I watched for his reaction to my question, he pondered while he paced a smooth path through the sculptures. Again, I was at an advantage. I knew all of the works like the back of my hand and I could simply observe him.

 

“Mmm. How people lived around them, at the time. With music, too. We can play pieces from any century and hear the same thing, at a basic level. We’ll never know for sure, of course, but its the trying to get close that’s interesting.” He had walked to the other side of the Roman marble statue of Aphrodite, and from where I was standing his elbow was lined up next to the marble head of a youth. I almost laughed out loud. At the beginning of my tertiary education, from the moment I learned that the eyes of marble statues and other details would have originally been painted rather than chiseled, I had tried to imagine what they looked like. I never got too far, but today, with Elio standing there, where I had stood a million times before, I thought I could see a glimpse into the minds of the great sculptors, like Praxiteles. Whatever they _did_ paint, I imagined it was to capture the intangible quality of beauty that people like Elio were bathed in.

 

“What?”

 

“Nothing.”

 

“You’re staring.”

 

“Sure. Do you want me to stop?” A blush crept ever so slightly up from his neck into his jaw and he smirked again, looking away.

 

 _Flirting_.

 

“Which one’s your favourite?”

 

I looked over to the fragmented marble torso of Eros. Elio gave a small smile and started walking towards it.

 

“Praxiteles is one of dad’s favourites too,”

 

“And what do you think about him?”

 

“He's canonised for being first to sculpt the life-size female nude, but I’ve always liked his male nudes more.”

 

“I agree. I can only imagine what the Eros looked like at the time, when it was complete. But perhaps the allure is in the fragmentation, or adds to it at least. Without the face or the complete pose, the curved torso drips with _mystery_ and—”

 

“Sex.”

 

He had ended up right by my side, his shoulder just touching my bicep. I looked into his eyes, and he stared right back. The same daring. The same challenge as that day we stood in the water at the berm. That fateful day.

 

“Tell me more.” He blinked innocently, and I almost devoured him then and there.

 

“Well, this is only a Roman marble copy. The original bronze is lost, and depicted Apollo instead. The Romans gave him wings, and Eros he became.”

 

“Eros is so interesting, is he not? ‘All’s fair in love in war’. He must have inspired that phrase. Born of the two things and fair in appearance, to be sure, but he’s anything but that in character or reality.”

 

“Elaborate,” I didn’t articulate the feeling in thought, in the moment, but something dropped in my stomach as I said that.

 

“He takes over the course of the life of Psyche with his own accidental passion, and as consequence she has to perform three tasks which include going to hell— during all that she wants to kill herself at multiple occasions and the _entire time_ Eros is just nursing his wounds in his god _damned_ celestial palace,” 

 

He ends his tirade with a sharp, accusing look. It wrinkles momentarily with embarrassment: he didn’t mean to get into it so soon, he probably meant to say these things at a more opportune time in a more curated way, but all the same he was angry, he deserved to be, and he was going to let me know it.

 

“I’m Eros and you’re Psyche,” I couldn’t help but feel a little defensive— more than a little, really, but I had to let him get it out.

 

“Yeah, you even have your very own scar! I was in hell after you left, and that winter after _everything_ you called to tell me you _missed me_ and then you immediately _stomped_ on my hope and my heart and got engaged. Did I mind? _Did I mind?_ You asked me—” He broke into sobs then, and I wasn’t sure if I should touch him but I did it anyway. I held him tight, like I was pressing him back together: like he was made of the marble fragments, like his heart wasn’t broken and like I wished I hadn’t broken it in the first place.

 

“I— I didn’t mean… want to—” his hoarse voice was muffled against my shoulder and people were beginning to catch on to our conversation, but it didn’t matter.

 

“Shh, shh. It’s okay. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.” I kept whispering the words, but were they even for him to hear anymore? It was like praying and just wishing that the universe would simply _feel_ your guilt and decide to let you off the hook. He drew back abruptly and wiped down his wet cheeks with his thumb and cleared his throat.

 

“Let’s— let’s just go to dinner.” He took a sheepish look at me and then a spot on the ground somewhere between us before turning on his heel and walking off altogether. Confused, sure, but I was never going to let myself watch his back walk away from me, getting smaller into the distance ever again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Where will they go next?? Next chapter is only short ways away. As a side note, mini homage to my Gossip-Girl-watching days, s/o to lunching on the filthy Met steps for the aesthetic and Penn Badgley à la season 5 Dan Humphrey as Marc hahahaawoefih 
> 
> Works mentioned:
> 
> [Aphrodite](https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/254697)  
> [Marble head of a youth](https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/255422)  
> [Eros](https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/251475)
> 
> ** Originally said Marc was a sophomore, he is not. He is a junior. I just forgot the order of the terms lolowheiweh sozzzz


	4. Accanto A Chi

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One of my favourite songs of all time but also incredibly fitting to the current state of longing and tension is Peppino Gagliardi’s [Accanto A Chi](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cPvyyBlWkME), I do recommend having a listen (if not as you read this chapter!). In more exciting news, we have finally arrived at the smut. ;)

Elio lead the way out of the museum and started walking along the edge of Central Park, and it was probably eight blocks before he calmed and began walking next to me instead of charging ahead. This far into Midtown, I thought of a place he would appreciate.

 

We turned a corner onto the surprisingly quiet street between Madison and Park Avenue, and into the unassuming entrance of the Monkey Bar. 

 

“The Elyseé?” Elio said the name in his French that I loved so much, a far cry from the bastardised American ‘ellie-say’ that I heard so much more often. 

 

“Beautiful interiors and historic, but this is where—”

 

“Where Tennessee Williams passed away.” His eyes glinted in the dim light: Elio could never resist a place of literary historical significance. The establishment served good food, and the layers of chatter, clinking cutlery and piano made our little corner intimate and yet not too intimidatingly so.

 

“We should order a merlot,” he looked down as he fingered the handle of his silver knife nonchalantly.

 

“Oh?”

 

“In honour of Williams’ greatest lover,” I only smiled, Elio loved to show off and I wanted to see where he was going to take his thoughts. 

 

“Merlo died too soon, tragically, but I can’t forget how Williams returned to his side and took care of him at the end of his life. Even though he knew he’d be sent into a depression when he died.”

 

“True strength, to face a lover’s pain like that,” I looked him in the eyes and hoped he would intercept my meaning. He returned the look for a while, and I couldn’t quite read what he was thinking.

 

“Did she know about me?” I nodded. We were treading into sensitive waters but, in a way, I wasn’t uncomfortable. There would be feelings, but I knew Elio wanted the whole truth.

 

“Like I said, we had been on and off… I proposed because, I guess in a way, she was Williams to my Merlo,” I sought his eyes again, to make sure we were still on the same page. “I’d been an ass, and that was the way I thought I could take care of her.”

 

He mulled this over, swilled the merlot that had appeared in his glass by way of the discrete and efficient waitstaff. His right hand was a tight fist, placed next to his knife.

 

“At least _she_ didn’t end up destroyed.” 

 

I could only sit there, dumb. He was right, and I couldn’t do anything to fix what I’d done. I had thrust my emotional baggage suddenly into Marilyn’s hands, and then tried to make up for it, and yet my solution resulted in hurting Elio. I had been selfish, cowardly—

 

Elio unclenched his fist and placed his hand on mine. The look in his eyes was still faraway, hurt, disappointed, but he squeezed my hand. 

 

“I’m not holding it against you.”

 

He said a thousand more words with his eyes and then let go, traced my knuckles with his index.

 

“Time… _time_ happened to us, then. And now, time will fix it.” 

 

I closed my eyes and took a breath at that. How could he say that? How did he just find it within himself to— I scarcely believed it and I badly wanted to kiss him, but settled for a peck to the back of his hand. He used to speak of not having the words to say what he wanted, but that was surely more appropriate applied to me. 

 

“What do you think of the jazz piano?”

 

“Well,” 

 

The rest of the night went by quickly, other guests came and went at the tables next to us but we stayed on, until we were forced to move to the bar because the restaurant staff were leaving. Elio spoke of jazz, and I asked about his research, he was writing —tentatively— about Philip Glass’ _Music in the Shape of a Square_ , an homage to Satie, and our conversation flitted from there to Fluxus and then to minimalism. At one in the morning, the bartender sent us off with one last glass of some top-shelf whisky to share between us. It was on him, he said, he learnt something new for every small snippet of conversation he heard from our side of the bar. 

 

“You two have a good night, now.” The barman winked and we bubbled with laughter, wine drunk but also basking in each other’s company. We stumbled outside into the cool night air: just cold enough to keep us wanting to huddle close together. I lit a Pall Mall, and saw Elio staring at my hands and then my lips and then into my eyes. 

 

My heart beat sluggishly in my ears but _hard_ as if in slow motion. His jaw, the bridge of his nose, his brow and the shadow under his bottom lip were painted in a deep chiaroscuro in the light from the hotel doors to one side and a streetlamp further away to the other. I removed the cigarette from my lips, I had thought of something to say but I couldn’t remember what, and before I knew it Elio pushed me into the wall and his lips were on mine.

 

His hands grabbed hungrily at my waist, grasping and pulling at my shirt like he was going to undress me then and there in the street, and it felt so good I didn’t care if he did. His lips and tongue tasted of the merlot and the exquisite whisky, but I was hungry only for the taste of him. It was as desperate and charged as it had been years ago: making the most of time we had together turned into making _up_ for _lost_ time, and everything was new and familiar all at once. 

 

“Take me home,” he breathed when we finally broke apart.

 

I burst into the lobby of the hotel, Elio in tow, and requested a cab be called. To the credit of the Elyseé and all the eccentric, colourful people they had received over the years, they handled our state of inebriation and lust with the utmost professionalism and, in what seemed like no time but also an eternity, we arrived at my house and found our way to the bedroom.

 

He kissed me again: his feverish, eager, ravaging kiss, and our clothes were flying off at such a speed and with such impatient hands I hardly knew who was undressing who.

 

We stood in the middle of the room— this room that I had pleasured myself and senselessly fucked other people in, as if to forget and remember what I could about the body of the man who I was about to let take me— skin pressed to skin, his chest to mine, a knee slotting between my legs to get all the more closer.

 

“Fuck me, Oliver,” I husked into his hear, and he made the most glorious sound between a moan, a groan and a sob as if he had come and been stabbed in the heart all at once. He pushed me on the bed, kissed and sucked and bit my neck before reaching into the drawer in search of lube. He must have remembered that that was where I used to keep it and when he found it, squirted it unceremoniously all over. I had barely registered the sensation of the cold liquid before his hot hands were all over my chest, my cock and then breaching the ring of muscle that had been _aching_ since I laid eyes on him.

 

“Did you fuck other people in this bed? How many?” He was growling the questions into my ear between mauling my neck, and all the while preparing me, fucking me open with the most delicious aggression.

 

“I—”

 

“Did you let other people fuck you? Look at me,”

 

“No,” I barely got the syllable out between moans, the frenzied look in his eyes both turned me on and made me want to get on my knees and beg his forgiveness.

 

“Good.” With that, he thrust into me all in one go and I cried out.

 

“Yes, yes, yes,” I kept saying the glorious word as he pounded into my body, and with every slap of flesh to flesh, each tug of my hair, each bite to my neck, he reclaimed my heart and my soul— lost in time and the universe, now back where it belonged.

 

* * *

 

When we finished, I willed Elio to sleep— he was still more drunk than I was. In no time he was out cold on his belly and exposed, because he refused to let me cover him with the sheets and insisted I let him be. 

 

I sat in the armchair at the end of the room, too alert to be lying down. What a whirlwind. Just last night I was speaking to Marilyn and what she had prophesied had come true. Elio was in my bed, once again, and I could not be more _happy_ but there was a hollow kind of dread at the same time.

 

Part of it was that I felt like I could still lose him at any moment, but there was a strange sensation that had never been there before and that I had not anticipated. It was out-of-body, part of this transition, I guessed. It was a cousin of the sensation I had the last couple times I slept with a stranger, and what had made me stop months ago. With those situations, it had been a sick feeling— not so severe as regret but a slight cheapness because nothing could ever match what I had with Elio, and I was lying and playing a part in my affection towards them.

 

Now, it _was_ Elio, but I still felt the hollowness. Perhaps it was just the come-down from the filter of alcohol that was like a zoom lens on the present. Sober, I had the time and consciousness to think about what I’d done, what we’d done, and the gravity of the moment. Before I could finish dissecting and rationalising, Elio woke again. He felt what would have been my side of the bed before sitting up, coughing, and reaching for the glass of water that I had set down for him.

 

“You thought of everything,” he said, his voice thick. I chuckled and leaned back in the chair, not sure what he’d do and not entirely pulled out of my own thoughts just yet.

 

“Come back to bed.” At that, I stood and made my way over. Even in the dark, I could feel his eyes all over my body. I retrieved my stash from the drawer.

 

“Let’s just smoke one,”

 

“Okay.”

 

We shrugged into our shirts and underwear and then sat on the little balcony on the fire escape outside the window. I sat on one of the steps and Elio leaned against the railing, perched on the solitary upholstered stool I kept out here for this exact purpose. I took a drag from the reefer and passed it to him, then leaned back to watch and continue examining my feelings.

 

“This place must cost a fortune,” he mused as he looked down the street and realised we were just one amongst a row of brownstones.

 

“A professor who retired couple years back owns it. Rents it out to me for much less than she should. She has a houseboat, now, that she takes around the Italian riviera. It’s been almost two years, but she insists I’m only house-sitting and doesn’t increase the rent.” He chuckles and passes the reefer back.

 

“I used to wonder if you charmed people here, at home. When you came that summer everyone fell in love with you. I saw why, of course, but I also wondered if it helped that you were the new, fresh meat— don’t laugh, let me finish,” he laughed too, despite himself. “But I saw you that day, in your office. You belonged there, you were part of the building, but there’s just this _glow_ that follows you everywhere and,”

 

I kissed him then, grasped his shoulder and then the side of his jaw. It was a deep kiss, but unattached to the itch of lust or the burden of being the first of our reunion, and everything clicked. We were just us again, we’d found our rhythm. Elio, Oliver, Oliver Elio.

 

I caressed his face, and there was a tenderness in his eyes now. 

 

“Did I hurt you just now? I was kind of angry, but I shouldn’t have—” I kissed him quiet.

 

“It was everything I wanted and more.” He seemed unconvinced still but let it go and another kind of worry flitted across his face. He stayed quiet and reached for the reefer instead.

 

“You want the answers to the questions you asked me just now.”

 

“Yes,” he said sheepishly, and looked down to the pavement. He took a breath as if to start justifying and explaining.

 

“No, I mean to answer all your questions. I was just temporarily preoccupied before,” I raised my eyebrows at him and he smiled impishly, proudly. 

 

“I moved here when Marilyn and I broke up. After that I brought a couple people home but I stopped quickly.”

 

“Why? You must have had people lining up at your feet.” Elio said this shrilly, despite himself, took another drag and crossed his arm over himself as if to stop himself from saying more.

 

“Simple. None of them were you.” His eyes changed again, and we were quiet for a while, occasionally passing the reefer. When it was done and stubbed out, Elio burst out laughing.

 

“What?”

 

“We’re a mess.” I looked down, and sure enough I could see a series of shiny marks all over my abdomen and thighs, a veritable Pollock made of unspeakable things. Elio stood up, still laughing, and clambered back inside.

 

“Come on, have a shower,”

 

“No,” I replied, and climbed in after him. “Let me make love to you, first.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ahhhhhhhhhhhh, what did we think? I know they’re being mega extra with all these references but it’s one of the things I love most about them in the book and that I really missed in the movie!! Here’s a [link](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K6K0u2ThQX8) to the Philip Glass work that is mentioned. Taking a cue from @Eva_Marlowe here with Elio's musical pursuits, which is a genius connection because of his contemporary connection to Satie's compositions which are used in the film. Comments and kudos are mega appreciated!!


	5. You Will Not Fuck This Up

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A long update for you, because uni is _still_ out. A bit more of Marilyn, here, she is My Fave now. Elio Oliver, who? Just kidding. Enjoy!!

We spent that weekend in a haze of sex and smoke, not really quite leaving the bed except to subsist on what food I had left in the fridge: which wasn’t a lot, considering I had only been buying for one. We finally made it outside late Sunday afternoon, strolling around until we happened upon a diner or something or other that struck our fancy.

 

“I didn’t realise how close you were to Central Park, it must only be twenty minutes from campus.” I nod.

 

“Not a bad walk in the morning, helps to clear the head. Where are you living?”

 

“I’m sharing a flat in the Bronx,” he laughs at the mild grimace I give at the thought of the commute. “It’s not bad, probably takes just as long to get to campus as your walk.”

 

“Well, if you ever get tired of it you could stay with me.” He looks up and gives me a look, happy yet unsure and maybe a tinge of shyness. It reminded him, us, of the real world that we had to return to and how we had to start building our relationship around how we each lived here. Maybe I had spoken too soon with that, we had only just started again.

 

“Yeah, my flatmate is never really there anyway, and if I spent nights at yours…” he trailed off, and I knocked him lightly in the shoulder.

 

“Later,” I smirked, and he laughed. We eventually settled on a decent, tiny pizzeria. This was interesting, I thought, to watch Elio eat Italian food not in Italy. 

 

When it came, he shook his head ever so slightly but dug in anyway. I followed suit and it was silent as he aggressively bit through one slice and moved on to another.

 

“Food good?” I tried to suppress a smile. The pizza was fine, but a far cry from Mafalda’s home cooked meals, and certainly incomparable to the food he enjoyed for years while studying in Rome.

 

“’S’good.” He said around a mouthful of pizza, and tried to be nonchalant. 

 

“Okay, fine! It’s very different to back home, and I’m adjusting. The New York pizza is just a different…entity, that’s all. Different.” I laughed at that, he was obviously still trying to convince himself.

 

We strolled back to the house in the sunset, and if I squinted really hard, amongst the trees in the park, it felt like being back in Crema.

 

Spread out on the couch, we spoke about everything and nothing until Elio’s pager started chirping. He had agreed to meet a friend for dinner and was now close to an hour late. Hurriedly, he dressed and I gave him one of my shirts, he could pick up his clothes the next time he was over.

 

“Reminds me of,” he only had to look at me to finish the thought. I pulled him by the still-open shirt and kissed him as I buttoned it up. I started to pull away as I was done but he pulled me back in by the back of my neck.

 

“I don’t want to go,” he said lowly against the corner of my mouth.

 

“No, you should, don’t let me keep you from your friends,” I was saying these words but my hands lingered on his waist and in his hair all the same.

 

“Okay,” Elio had to be the one to finally step away and towards the door. “Beep me tomorrow.”

 

“Is that what you youths are calling it these days?”

 

“Shut up.” He attacked me for one more quick kiss, and then he was out the door. I stood in the small foyer and laughed. In one weekend, he had brought more life to this house than there had been since I moved in. Two wine glasses on the coffee table, two plates in the sink, the bed messed up in a way that couldn’t have been accomplished individually, and his _clothes_ in my washer. It was the same sensation as when one walked indoors from having had a smoke outside in the cold: for just a second you could smell the smoke on yourself, and warmth crept back into your fingertips as the wind burn melted away. I could smell Elio on me, and could feel his just-recently-gone skin under my palms. But he’d be here again soon. 

 

Soon.   Again.

 

 

 

It was a busy week, in anticipation of exams, but the days passed almost without my knowledge. I only knew I went to work in the day, and by night Elio was in my arms and at my house, and we’d do it all over again. It was only until Thursday and I made it to my office that I realised it had been a week since he had come back into my life. As always, I left the door open at first and then Carla walked in. 

 

She was a first year doctorate student herself, now, and had been in my classes since I was only a teaching assistant. We made pleasant smalltalk and she caught me up on her research, and when she got up to leave she turned back, adjusted the strap of the bag on her shoulder and narrowed her blue eyes at me.

 

“What?”

 

“There’s something different about you, Oliver.” She says and tips her head to the side. I try not to blush.

 

“Yeah?”

 

“Yeah, and whatever it is— whoever it is, keep them. They look good on you.” She narrows her eyes and gives a knowing pop of her eyebrows, turns on her always impeccable fuchsia patent heels and leaves before I respond. There’s muffled sounds from the hallway, and I try to guess which one of my regulars had arrived next.

 

“Marc,” I nod at him as he, as per usual, takes two big steps to the chair in front of the desk and drops his bag next to him. He sits and doesn’t say anything and I cross my arms, shoot him my best ‘professor’ look.

 

“You’re in love.”

 

Whatever biting opening I thought he had prepared, it _was not_ this. Despite my best efforts to remain placid, he had successfully caught me off guard.

 

“Excuse me?”

 

“I didn’t stutter. You heard me. You’ve been using bruise cream on your neck, I can tell. College kids invented that shit.” He was sitting back in his chair, arms crossed over his leather bomber jacket.

 

“I let you get away with _a lot_ , Marc, but this has crossed the line— the one you’ve been pushing since ever, and—”

 

“Being defensive is answer enough,” he jumps out of his seat as quickly as he had claimed it, smoothly picking up his messenger as he went. He paused with his hand on the doorknob and turned back.

 

“Sorry,” he grimaced a mock smile “sir.”

 

What a _punk_.

 

 

 

That evening, I was cooking when the doorbell rang. By the time I opened the door, I was already beaming and wrapped Elio inside, kissing him as I took the jacket off his shoulders.

 

“Hungry?” I asked and left him to return to tending to the chicken I was searing off.

 

“Not as much as you, apparently,” he came from behind and kissed my shoulder before moving to the fridge, helping himself to some carrot sticks. 

 

We ate on the couch, sitting at opposite ends with legs tangled in between. I told him what Carla had said to me, and he couldn’t stop laughing.

 

“Those were her exact words? ‘They look good on you?’” He set his plate down on the coffee table, he was in danger of tipping it all over the carpet.

 

“Those were her exact words,” I grinned at how much of a kick he was getting from the story, and set my plate aside as he started climbing over my legs to get closer. He pulled my shirt over my head and then his own and sat in my lap.

 

“How would you like to wear me? Hmm?” He laid down and pressed every inch of his chest to mine and swallowed my tongue in his mouth. “Like this?”

 

“Or like this?” He pulled down my trousers, and my cock sprang up to meet him, and he smirked before he swallowed that too. Just as he was working the most _delicious_ rhythm he stopped, took off his jeans and straddled me.

 

“Or, my personal favourite,” I had almost forgotten what game we were playing, and my last remnants of intelligent thought went out the window as he slid all the way down my dick with no preparation at all.

 

It wasn’t until he was in the shower that I realised I had not told him about Marc— and I wasn’t sure how much of that was on purpose or accidental. The phone rang and I picked up.

 

“Hello?”

 

Marilyn’s shrieking cackle greeted me and I closed my eyes and let the phone away from my face until I could hear she was done.

 

“You should hear yourself, professor, you sound so much better already. Bit of Marvin Gaye for you?” She sang some choice lyrics from _Sexual Healing_ and I could only roll my eyes. Was I that obvious and transparent an individual? Or perhaps this was just what happened to people when they were truly in love.

 

“Don’t you have anything else better to do than harass me?” She sobered then and stopped snickering. 

 

“Actually, this bit of harassment is commissioned by his grace Joshua Steinem, Esquire. I lied and told him you approved of the whole house business but he saw through me and insists we have lunch this Saturday so he can make sure.”

 

“You tried to lie to a prosecutor?”

 

“No, I lied to my _husband_ who happens to be a man of the law. Still bad, but he’s been so annoying with all this and I don’t lie when it counts.” I was quiet at that. I realised I didn’t tell Elio about Marc because it was so much to explain considering we had just reunited and it didn’t really have anything to do with him, did it?

 

“You there?”

 

“Yeah, yes. Sure, Saturday. Usual place?”

 

“Yeah. Meet me earlier for coffee at ten, I need the juice on you and Elio before Josh can ruin my day with talk about bookings and how to transport your senile grandmother to Rhode Island.”

 

I hung up and sat in the armchair, thinking it over, but let it slip to the back of my mind as Elio returned from his shower and sat in my lap, wet and naked asking me to dry him.

 

 

 

The start of the weekend was interesting. In class that Friday morning, I had already begun, and then Marc stalked in late, paid no notice to me and sat right at the back in the middle of the lecture theatre. I had a habit of switching between speaking to the left and then to the right of the theatre, but never really to the middle and definitely not to the back. He was avoiding me, but also, rather cinematically, became some sort of pathetic fallacy for the guilt and heaviness that loomed over me about keeping things from Elio.

 

We had dinner but decided it was probably best for Elio not to stay the night.

 

“Even Germain has realised I haven’t been home all week.” 

 

I told him about the spare key I kept under one of the decorative rocks out on the stoop, and asked him to let himself in Saturday afternoon if I wasn’t done with lunch. He became shy when I mentioned the planning for the holidays— perhaps there were no thoughts yet about spending it together, but we didn’t consider the period of separation and what it would be like for us. He kissed me on the cheek goodbye, a rucksack full of the clothes he’d laundered at mine this week in tow, and headed for the subway. I was swallowing my secret deeper and deeper and it would only get harder to spit it up later.

 

I was glad for Marilyn’s suggestion that we meet before lunch by the time it rolled around. I was already sat at one of the outdoor tables outside our regular cafe, and I could see her start beaming at me from a block away. I stood to greet her with a kiss on the cheek, and she flipped the sunglasses which had been on her head down.

 

“Gosh, you’re like the sun just beaming with happiness.” I laughed at that, it meant a lot coming from her and I was forever in her debt. She pushed the sunglasses back up, having made her point and lit a cigarette before waving down the staff for her usual order.

 

“Thank you,”

 

“I mean it, Oliver.” Marilyn has one of those great smiles where the best part is the scrunch and curve of her eyes. I only saw it occasionally when we were together, but now it was one of my favourite parts about being around her and Joshua: she smiled like that when she thought he wasn’t looking.

 

“So, how’d it all go?” I recounted what had happened starting from the museum, leaving out the details of our nights, and Marilyn listened as she sipped coffee and devoured her pastry.

 

“God, I can’t believe you two.” She laughed. “It sounds amazing and I’m happy for you, but you’re some real art types, you know that? You’d probably get off on making out in front of Mark Twain's grave or something.” 

 

I exploded into laughter because she wasn’t far off the mark and we laughed so loudly and for so long that waitstaff had to tell us to be quiet. She had studied comparative literature in university but Marilyn had always been a no-nonsense person, and refused to ‘talk like a jackass’ outside of work: it was charming to her for the first twenty minutes after her morning coffee and then she couldn’t stand it at all.

 

We sobered and were comfortably quiet for a while.

 

“We dulled each other, Ol. I can’t tell you how glad I am to hear all this and be a part of your life. I don’t think I could have heard all this, right after you came back, even though I knew you were in pain. I care about you so much and we loved each other, but not how we needed to be loved or how we want to love people.”

 

I could only nod and give her a wistful smile. She saw through me the entire time, back then, and I had tried to pretend so hard for both of us, that we could stay blind. I squeezed her hand and lit her a cigarette before lighting myself one as well.

 

“You said you never lie to Josh when it counts.” I began. Immediately she gave a look as if to say ‘what now’.

 

“Yeah,”

 

“How do you decide where the line is?” She swore and took an impatient drag of her cigarette.

 

“The official review is that I’m hating this prologue to whatever you’re about to tell me. One star.”

 

“Remember Marc?” I described the brief encounter and by the end Marilyn was holding her head with her hand.

 

“God, I never knew why you let that kid say all the shit he says to you.”

 

“I guess… he reminds me of me. He’s struggling against something: his family, self worth, finding what he’s good at. How much did _we_ struggle back in the day?”

 

“It was like being suffocated inside of a velvet bag while caught in a mouse trap.” Her Marilyn-isms never failed to delight me. “Too much control is wrong but that doesn’t mean you lose the reins altogether, Oliver. You don’t just throw a baby bird away into the wild because you want it to be free, it’ll fall on its face and die.”

 

“I don’t know what to do. I don’t want to write him up, Zetzel has it in for him as it is.” Marilyn shook her head furiously and reached for another Parliament Slim.

 

“No, that’s not what this is about. Shitty kid, sure, but let him cool down and figure his unrequited love thing out on his own. This is about you and you deciding what _you_ think other people want to know.” Like a chastised child, I sucked on my cigarette.

 

“This is the same thing all over again. You used to— No. I’m not going to get into it. The point is that you can’t just decide things like this when you’re in a relationship, Oliver. Maybe this Marc thing will go away on its own, but it’s weirder that you won’t tell him than if you tell him and _he_ asks why you brought up something so inconsequential.”

 

I mulled this over. She was right. She hadn’t dug it up, but we both knew now that my decision, then, to propose marriage was like a strange misplaced bandaid on a too-big problem that only ended up trapping us both.

 

“You listen to me, okay?” She pointed at me with the cigarette, ashes flying across the table. “You. Will _not_ fuck this up. You will not fuck this up for _yourself_ , and you will not fuck this up _again_ for Elio.”

 

She stubbed it out hard into the ashtray, and simultaneously used it as leverage to stand up.

 

“Now, come on. I’ve been wanting to eat this chicken parmigiana all week and Josh is going to pay for it.”

 

I, would not fuck this up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OOOOH, Marilyn is not here to play and Marc Did Not Even Stutter Once.
> 
> I loved writing this and I hope you don't hate me for characterising Oliver this way aaahhh hahahah. Let me know what you thought (love it or hate it) down below! Comments and kudos always appreciated, and I do reply to everyone!


	6. Declarations

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> New update for you!! Took some time, I wanted to get everything right!! Hope you enjoy~ [Link](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kpnqZeZh32Q) to the Fred Bongusto song mentioned, it's absolutely lovely.

When we got to our usual haunt, Joshua was already at the table and writing in his pocket notebook. He looked up as we walked in, because it was in his nature to look up every time the door opened. He smiled and put the notebook into the pocket of his suit and slid the pen into his breast pocket— it was a screw-lid fountain pen, of course. Precise and graceful, and no leaking or any embarrassing marks, ever.

 

“Oliver, my man.” He grins and brings me into a hug, before kissing his wife on the cheek. “I missed you, crazy.”

 

“Buy me the parmigiana and then we can talk, Kelly.” He laughed and with a wave of his hand, the waitstaff were off to bring his princess her meal. Marilyn’s favourite film of all time was _Singin’ in the Rain_ — she was corny, still, in another kind of way. Joshua looked like he had stepped out of the film right into the eighties, ‘like a Jewish Gene Kelly, God is real!’ she would gush in their early days.

 

He was my step-cousin and four years older, his mother married one of my uncles when I was thirteen. I never really got to know him and before long, he was whisked off to law school, then a placement with a firm in Washington, and had come to New York to work for the District Attorney two years ago. A professional success and armed with his exuberant, Gene Kelly-esque charm, no one could fault Marilyn for marrying him so quickly. 

 

Two and a half months from his big homecoming, we had become easy, pleasant friends, and he asked me to meet him at a bar uptown.

 

 

“Man to man,” he slid me a whiskey. “I love Marilyn, Oliver. And God, she’s _a lot_ , but she’s it for me.”

 

I smiled because she had told me the same just recently, but kept neutral.

 

“She told me the gist of what happened between you two. And no, don’t worry, I’m not asking any questions because I respect the both of you. I’m not a lawyer outside of the office. Just me, you know. Just Josh.”

 

“And I thank you for that.” He smiled, and his charm hit me, too.

 

“She told me it was her who closed the door, and you’re good friends now. I believe that, I can tell you really look out for her.” He looked down into his glass and then back at me, eyes tight. “Honestly, I’m not really sure what I’m trying to say. But I thought we needed this moment.”

 

“It’s not mine to give, but if you were looking for a blessing or…” I didn’t know what to say either, and he nodded.

 

“People are complicated and relationships are messy. I mean, when my mom and Laurence got together…” he sighed, took a swig of his drink. “I just, I guess I wanna do right by you too, as a cousin. And a brother. We both love Marilyn. And— what am I talking about? Let’s face it, we’ll just do whatever she says.” 

 

I snorted then, and we clinked glasses. Josh took his lawyerly skills to our family after that, and managed to steer everyone happy: sealing the deal on his and Marilyn’s relationship, and effectively filing away the chapter of Marilyn and I. 

 

 

“Okay, down to business, cadets,” Josh settled to his meal and explained all the options we had for the annual family winter getaway. He described budgets and all the differences in transport and what jobs we’d have to do depending on the option, and half an hour in, Marilyn and I were both lost and left picking at our meals.

 

“So, I was thinking option three, the one facing south-west so it’s not as bad for bubba’s arthritis, it’s still got a view and has a wide driveway so we can drive everyone there and if anyone decides they want to take a walk out in a wheelchair, the hill still isn’t too steep to push them. How do we feel about that?”

 

Marilyn tore herself more bread to mop her plate with, and I shrugged my agreement.

 

“This one’s further in so you’ll have to drive everyone up, even if it snows. The other cousins are flying in directly from all over, its just us in New York. Everyone else who can drive won’t have space in their car, so you’ll have to drive bubba and great auntie June, and Marilyn and I will drive whoever’s left. You two are sure you can commit to that?” We shrugged again, and Josh rolled his eyes at our lukewarm response. It was sweet of him, at the end of the day. Josh loved people by organising.

 

“Okay, I guess that’s settled. Only other question is if you’re bringing anyone with you.” Marilyn whipped her head to look at her husband and back to me.

 

“I don’t think I will be,”

 

“It’s just that I overheard you and Marilyn on the phone. I didn’t mean to, but you know… whoever this guy is, if he’s important to you, then feel free to bring him.”

 

Marilyn openly gaped and placed her hand over his. Historically, I was not sure where Josh stood regarding this part of me. Whenever the subject of sexuality was approached, he gently skirted around it and moved the conversation on. I never directly told him anything, but I guessed Marilyn would have explained little by little. We all knew everyone in my family would drop dead if I brought a man home with me so suddenly: the invitation was a personal gesture from him to me.

 

“Josh,” it reminded me of the moment he declared his love for Marilyn. Now, in a way, he was declaring it for me. 

 

“You deserve to be happy, completely so. And I mean to make it happen.”

 

 

On my way back to the house, I reached the conclusion that I needed to tell Elio everything: from now until forever. I had recognised the need to be open regarding relationships, but it needed to go the same for everything, what was on my mind. He hadn’t said anything, but I knew I was being different with all this in my head. I had longed to be seen, but now I was compartmentalising and not _allowing_ him to do so. We had gone through so much to be together, and I needed to honour that. We were resilient, and anything I ever wanted to tell him was not going to break us.

 

The moment when Josh had sought me out when he first came back, and in the moment just this afternoon. They weren’t flashy, such subtle actions, but I would remember, always, that he had thought of me and made space for whatever we needed to say. It was one of the things I appreciated most about him, and I needed to emulate that for myself.

 

When I opened the door, the smell of a deep Italian roast and the sounds of Fred Bongusto permeated the house. I found Elio standing at the counter, staring pensively into his cup of coffee. He barely looked up as I walked in, and I held him to my chest.

 

“I brought over my records and the coffee pot from home. Do you mind? I miss Mafalda. She knew all the words to Bongusto’s songs when he came on the radio.” I smoothed his curls and let him burrow into my sweater. My heart was thumping in my chest: how could I possibly open Pandora’s box and make this moment into a conversation about me?

 

“How was your lunch?” He mouthed the question against me and I could feel the wet warmth of his breath.

 

“It was fine. The usual. I hope we all can meet one day. You’d love them, and they’ll love you.”

 

“Mmm. Soon. What had you so worried yesterday?” Straight for the jugular. There was never going to be any way I could ever hide anything even if I tried. 

 

“Has to do with a student. It’s been going on for a bit, and I wasn’t sure whether to tell you or not. I don’t know, I thought I might have been overwhelming you…I wanted to focus on us. Stay in this bubble. With you.” We swayed lightly back and forth, embraced in turn by the sounds of _Tre Settimane Da Raccontare_. 

 

“Nothing gold can stay,” Elio quoted wistfully and held me tighter round the waist. “Go on, then.”

 

I recounted the saga of Marc, beginning from his fighting attitude in freshman seminars, the beginning of his weekly visits to my office hour, the party and how he had tried to chat up Marilyn, to the climax of the whole story in his most recent Thursday visit.

 

“Marilyn ended up convincing me to tell you.”

 

“Well, she’s right.” His tone seemed less than pleased, but he did not draw away. “I’ll admit, it makes my heart jump a little into my throat. But she’s right. Don’t… _curate_ the truth for what you think is my sake.”

 

“Won’t happen again.” I squeezed him and he squeezed back, pressing a small kiss to my sternum.

 

“Do you suppose you’ve let this go on for so long because you see yourself in him? Maybe even a bit of me.” Elio couldn’t see, but I was smiling at his perceptiveness. 

 

“I was mulling over that. I met Marc’s parents at the department party before the summer break this year. They’re strict and conservative…you know, they would have gotten along with mine. So I guess I saw me, in him. Struggling to find a voice, to make a career in classics work so you don’t have to face the I-told-you-so and be powerless to argue back.” I mused. Elio rubbed my back soothingly. “Where do you see the similarity between him and yourself?”

 

“He’s us, isn’t he? _We_ pretended to hate each other, once. In the beginning.” I chuckled. I supposed he was right. I hadn’t made the connection so consciously before, but it was there. 

 

“Well, I’m nice to him. So you have nothing to worry about.” I joked. Elio huffed a chuckle and tipped his head back. This was one of my favourite Elio-isms. The long, white column of his neck was revealed and his lids were hooded, his lashes cast faint shadows. But most of all, his lovely lips parted just so. 

 

“That’s a bad one.” He said, but his lips curled into a smile all the same.

 

“You love it.”

 

“I do.”

 

I pressed my lips to his and pushed him against the counter. His mouth tasted like his perfectly-made coffee and tenderness, and everything Elio. It tasted like our secret, stolen, lazy mornings in _heaven._  

 

Without parting, still joined at the lips, we managed to make it out of the kitchen to the slim couch. I loved Elio like this. So pliable, he curled and morphed around my body no matter how we changed position, only seeking out the contact of warm skin to warm skin. I slid my hands up his long-sleeved shirt and he whimpered at the contact, it was one of those days that he was ready to burst just from gentle touches. I teased and caressed his nipples and the soft skin of his lower abdomen, before seeking his cock in deeper waters. I brought him off with my hands only, my lips to his neck and whispering sweet nothings as he returned them by way of breathy moans and soft gasps into my hair. When he came, my heart only ached with affection, and I brought my fingers to my mouth to taste him: echoing a gesture so many years ago.

 

“I could never replace you,” I whispered. His eyes turned again: his impossible, chameleon eyes that shined with emotion so often as feeling filled to the brim and spilled from his heart. He pressed his lips to mine, almost chastely, despite the precious taste of him we now both shared. He took a breath, mouthing against my lips almost as if to kiss me again, and yet not quite.

 

“I love you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> How did we like this chapter? My heart is squeezed dry for these two. Happy Oscars, James Ivory won Best Adapted Screenplay (wearing a shirt with Timotheé's face on it!), and Armie/Timmy/Luca's faces after Sufjan Stevens' performance were pricelessly beautiful. Comments and kudos always appreciated, thank you for all the love!!


	7. Andante, Andante

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> New update! I reread the last section of the novel, Ghost Spots, and am Deep in my feelings haha. Title comes from ABBA's [song](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1zwbARWt8is) of the same name. This chapter doesn't really do a lot for the plot but I hope it's an interesting read, it was cathartic to write, and I thought we needed a bit of a catch up with Oliver. Go forth!!

“Again,”

 

I half-groaned and half-sobbed at Elio’s demand. He had just come, his muscles still tight around my cock and now he had one hand clawing at my ass, the other wrapped in my hair, and was speaking lowly into my ear as if casting a spell to will me to orgasm.

 

There are no words to describe what it feels like to be inside Elio. No words to describe the love letters our bodies wrote each other, no words to describe the heady mix of my feelings for him mapped onto the sensations of our bodies. It was a certain kind of magic in its own right and spoke to why we wrote about it in poetry from Ovid to Byron, why we remember Bernini’s work, why we sang about lust, love and heartbreak in every language.

 

With a great, indelicate roar I came, too, and all I could do was lie atop Elio, who had now turned to smoothing my hair and caressing my back.

 

“I love you.” I finally mumbled into his shoulder. A younger, less enlightened, and more pedantic Oliver would have sneered at such a declaration of love as disingenuous and motivated only by lust. But oh, how very wrong I was. Love is psychosomatic— there was no favouring the cerebral or the bodily: real love is loving with everything you have, in every way you can. Love was written into every inch of skin on Elio’s body and I intended to read it thoroughly, fervently, studiously with my lips.

 

Elio shook with laughter beneath me, and curled his legs tighter around my waist.

 

“Thoroughly ruined. Good thing there isn’t any teaching next week, give you time to recover.” I could not even retaliate. I rolled to the side to ease my weight off his body, but kept him in my arms and he kissed me sweetly.

 

“Please, next time do not ask me to fuck you again, _as_ I am still fucking you.” I said tiredly with eyes closed. I could feel the air move with Elio’s breathy laughter. 

 

“As you please. But I think I’m starting to feel the age difference, _id est_ your apparently deteriorating stamina,” I don’t think I have ever opened my eyes faster in my life. Elio was a stunning image of ruined hair, swollen lips, and sweaty limbs, complete with gleeful, teasing grin and the most delightful scrunch of his nose.

 

“Oh, is that how you’re playing it? Is that it? Hmm?” With a renewed fire, I played right into his hands. I started with tickling him and then mocked crushing him with my body weight. Before long, in such close proximity, we were hard again and Elio grinned into our kiss the whole way through.

 

 

Hours later, we shared one last cigarette on the fire escape before bed. I had upgraded the solitary stool to a simple bench meant for the foyer and as an aid to shoe-lace tying. It was just wide enough for two people, but it suited us just as well: I had Elio wrapped in my arms and an afghan wrapped around us both as we smoked his Camels.

 

“Would you walk a mile for these?” Elio mused absent-mindedly, referring to the brand’s slogan. I chuckled.

 

“If you were holding the pack.” He exhaled a mouthful of smoke and pinched the underside of my thigh simultaneously.

 

“We should have said it before now.” I said. Elio adjusted himself and leaned his head on my shoulder.

 

“We have in a way. You told me, ‘don’t ever say you didn’t know’. And I knew. I always knew, in a way. From the first day.” I nodded and rested my cheek on the crown of his head and let my eyes close. For a moment, it was still surreal. I had spent night after night on this almost-balcony trying to smoke my mind quiet, and now everything felt right because Elio and I— Elio and I were connected in heart, mind, body, and _breath_ by kisses and by virtue of the very things that aided my past misery.

 

“My heart was— is, so full of you. You’re in my bones. Something so difficult to put into words, declarations don't do it justice, but,” I finally looked down, and Elio’s wide, honest eyes stared up at me, his brows furrowed with melancholy, and we shared a simple, true moment of understanding. He threw the cigarette into the ashtray at our feet and tilted my chin to kiss me.

 

“Saying it will never be enough, but its just one of all the ways to say it,” he murmured. 

 

I never wanted to leave that balcony. And a part of me would always be there.

 

 

In the morning, we stayed tangled in bed and by the time we unwound and found the courage to be apart, it was past noon.

 

I hadn’t noticed yesterday, but Elio had brought two rucksacks with him, one full of clothes and the essentials and another with his work and the books he meant to read to catch up with research over the week’s break. As a research student, he was not subject to the same horror of exams as the undergraduates. I beamed as he settled himself in at my desk, marvelling at the typewriter I kept. He detested the computers at school, but had no other way to type his manuscripts, and elected to sneak into the computer science labs once a week, let in by one of his friends, in the dead of night to clack at the keys in peace. He was welcome to use mine, I said. At this point, he had basically moved in. 

 

I lazed around and tried not to bother him, occasionally bringing him cups of coffee or tea. I would have to pick up the exams from all my courses on Thursday, and then the real work would start. I was reading and going over my lesson plans on the couch, leaving Elio to his own devices. In the quiet that settled in the house, I could hear his rhythmic typing and imagined his long pianist’s fingers tapping away. Perhaps I’d buy a piano for him soon. Lost as I had been in the noise of my own head, I didn’t notice the stop of the tapping sounds, or Elio coming down the steps until his arms wrapped around my shoulders from behind.

 

“I missed you,”

 

“It’s only been a few hours.”

 

“I’m allowed to miss you for every second I’m not in your arms.”

 

“Yes.”

 

Despite my protests that he would never finish any work if we stayed like this, he swore he’d get it all done. He had a week, after all. Any student of any subject from across time could tell you that it was never going to happen. We spent the evening and a good part of the night simply talking. We spoke about films, books, songs, people, philosophy, current events. I missed the sound of his voice, followed by the sound of my own voice in reply and his laughter or snickering that would follow before he teased me or came up with a morsel of knowledge that either blew me out of the water or brought the discussion to another level. I would never tell him, but this was my favourite of his compositions, and would always be. The two textures of our voices, the same rhythms that gave shape to all of our conversations and the beats of our hearts that harmonised. 

 

We fell asleep somewhere down the line, but I had to get up to use the bathroom. When I opened the door back into the bedroom, there he still was. In one of his sprawling positions: this night, his left hand rested on his stomach while his right arm curled around his head. His left leg stuck out under the covers and formed an obtuse angle with his right. Perhaps it had been more elegant when it had been laying between mine.

 

His mouth was ever so slightly open, and his chest rose and fell with his breath. My chest filled with an odd cocktail of love and fear. This was, no doubt, at least a distant cousin of the sensation that incensed parents so. So unsettling it was that in the inter-war years, at the same time as developing military technology, someone was devoted to creating the first baby monitor. The sight of someone you loved sleeping was calming and you were happy that they were resting and so unaffected by what churned in their minds during the day. But it also was almost a trial run for death: how would you feel when one day you could see the body of a person you cared about so still and unanimated, who would respond now if you yelled loud enough, but one day would be beyond hearing, beyond your rousing, beyond this realm.

 

I laid back down on my side of the bed, and gingerly nudged Elio’s leg back over my own as a sort of comfort. I cared about him and loved him so much, had thought about him so much, but if I counted the days we had only really been in each other’s proximity for less than a season, less than the days between solstice to solstice. And yet, Italy was not just a point on my timeline, but had become the only solid point and the spindles that represented my time before and after warped, overlapped and knotted and I did not care enough to change the state of it. My life would have been so different. Had I not gone to Italy at all, or it had been another professor and another professor’s son or daughter, or Professor Perlman but without a child, or Elio still existed but he was away that summer for some reason or other and I’d only hear whispers about the man who now would factor into every single decision and held the reigns to my life— even if he didn’t know it.

 

If I had not gone at all and finished my book here, without the excuse to get away— from Marilyn, my family, my other responsibilities and seek a convenient holiday to Europe under the guise of work—would I have married her after all? Maybe we would have and she would have left me for Josh anyway: they would be the Elio and I of the story and I would simply be part of the tossed away collateral damage. Tossed not because they meant harm, but tossed because when you love someone so dearly, any sacrifice could be made. Maybe we’d stay married and have children, they'd end up just as broken if not more than we had been— raised in a family where they knew their parents were not truly happy or worse, assumed that adult life and responsibility were destined and written to be bleak and numb. 

 

Perhaps I’d turn harder into substances than I already had, perhaps I’d take up gambling again and it’d turn into an addiction, perhaps Marilyn and I would both bury ourselves into work and I’d die early of a heart attack from years of smoking, cholesterol, stress and a lack of purpose. Marilyn would always have been, in any iteration of our lives, more resilient— she’d be damned if after all those unhappy years that I still got to be unhappy for longer than her. 

 

I could have kept going further and further back, but my racing, anxious heart demanded I stop. There had been so many forks in my road— I had so many jobs all through college and could have dropped my studies to take any of them up, enough relationships that the number of my alternate lives could be multiplied by a further factor of five. Or all the way back to my childhood and the beginning of my awareness and consciousness- if I had not decided I wanted to make my own decisions, I could be living some perverse puppet life, forever at the beck and call of the family legacy. And if it all started there, what came first? Did all my decisions starting age six form  _me_ , or did I have some innate characteristics and itches that would have pushed me to a certain side anyway? Maybe it was God. Maybe all these questions were just a subconscious regurgitation of all the lectures on free will by the various rabbis I had been taught by over the years. 

 

Elio made a soft noise and turned over: he curled around my right side and placed his hand over my heart. 

 

“Sleep.” The way he said it, was almost as if he was spiriting my worries away. Somehow, they’d been sucked out of me by his hand and he’d disposed of them somewhere they couldn’t bother us. He didn’t know what I was thinking, he couldn’t have, and yet he did.

 

Under the touch of Elio, my insomnia was tamed. It was a burden he didn’t know he had lifted, and I liked it better that way. Maybe one day my mind would stay quiet, or perhaps after years in proximity to Elio and this ability only he had, it would no longer feel the need to run, into the future or the past, and would let me stay _here._ In the present.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for reading!! Your comments and feedback keep me going. I have half a mind to start another story that continues where the book left off, when Elio and Oliver are 40ish. Anyway, let me know your thoughts, I do reply!!


	8. Mystery of Love

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here we are! Good ol' Mystery of Love. God bless Sufjan. Read on!!

We spent the next few days in a loved up bubble, skin to skin and heart to heart. Elio took all of me and reciprocated, no questions asked. I had him every way I could, and he had me. We didn’t talk about it so directly, but I could feel his gaze on me from across the room or the other side of the couch intermittently making sure I was okay, or just gazing because he could, now. My heart expanded with every night and every morning. To be able to roll over and be next to him, to just reach out and touch. 

 

“I love this, Oliver,” Elio said over breakfast one day. The look in his eyes was mischievous and anticipating, waiting to see if I remembered.

 

“Us, you mean?” He grinned and returned to his cereal, but below the table he slid his foot under mine.

 

I left in the morning on Thursday for the department, Elio pouted at me playfully at the door but it was for the best. I knew myself, and if I stayed in our bubble for any longer I might as well leave my job and dedicate my life to making him come as many times as I could in a day.

 

We agreed I’d try to mark all the papers before the start of next week, then we’d finally get some work done. Perhaps it was boring and domestic, but I only wanted the normalcy. He had been miles, continents away before, and opening the door every night to find him in my home— our home?— was like opening a gift every day.

 

On Sunday, as usual, I was the only one in the department and felt a loose kind of focused. Riding on a full tank of contentedness and my Walkman playing David Bowie cassettes all day, I was ready to finish deciphering the piles of adolescent penmanship. There might have been a slight smugness in there, too, at knowing that I was always the quickest at marking papers within the department. Perhaps I’d do things differently a few more years and decades down the line, but I still remembered the anxiety of waiting for grades and besides, the sooner I was done the quicker I could get back to Elio.

 

 _New York’s In Love_ came on over my headphones and I almost laughed out loud when I realised what the lyrics said. ‘New York’s in love / with her big green eyes’, it reminded me of Elio and I wondered why and how I hadn’t caught that before now.

 

I was lip syncing and bobbing to the song as I deciphered the paper of someone who had elected to write their entire exam in green ink when the door opened, and of all people walked in Marc. 

 

I was almost embarrassed, partly because he caught me with my music, partly because I was wearing casual clothing and not my usual professorial attire, and partly because I had simply let my guard down: no one could possibly be here on a Sunday.

 

“I did knock, but I guess you just didn’t hear me.” He gestured vaguely to the Walkman and, instead of doing his usual big strides and making himself at home whether I invited him in or not, he stood with his back to the door. He was standing as far as possible away from me, but was also effectively trapping us in the room.

 

“Well, sit.” I turned over the exam papers I had on my desk and cleared the space, as if I was trying to physically clear the air.

 

“I thought I’d try the department door and see if you were in. Figured it couldn’t be anyone else, the old shits wouldn’t put this much effort in.” This was the most docile I had ever seen Marc, but it made him seem older, and it was subtle but he complimented me. Instead of his usual challenging gaze, he avoided eye contact and looked at a spot on the desk near my elbow.

 

“Marc,” I didn’t know what to say. It was certainly not appropriate for me to insinuate anything unless he had said it first.

 

“Look, I knew I was out of line. And I’ve _been_ out of line. I thought we had an understanding, in a way. That you didn’t mind.” He looked up now, unsure, and cleared his throat. I lifted a corner of my mouth into a half-smile for his sake.

 

“You’re one of my most motivated students. I’m hard on you for a reason, and your reciprocation is understandable. If not just _slightly_ abrasive.” Marc managed to huff and laugh, then sat up straighter in his chair.

 

“I don’t know what I’m doing. I just know that you’re the professor I respect the most, and I… want to take after you someday.” I nodded as neutrally as possible. I still could not see where he was going with all of this. “I assumed things, sort of _projected_ myself on to you.”

 

“Marc, I’m not going to lie to you. I guess I’ve been doing the same thing, my parents were super hard— _are_ super hard on me. I see myself in you, too.” His body language stiffened, perhaps this was the natural reaction when someone you were used to fighting as an authority figure let their guard down.

 

“How’d you get out?”

 

“You never really do. But you have to build your own life. Show them they don’t have a hold because you’re prepared to only have yourself to fall back on.” I looked at him hard, hoping he’d take what I said and run with it. But the Marc I saw sitting in my chair right now, was a soft, confused and broken _boy_. I hoped hope against hope that he’d find the strength one day, but he had the faraway look of someone who was so deep that only _they_ could claw themselves out.

 

“Do they know?” He looked me straight in the eye now. A muddle of thoughts and emotions cross his face, and then it finally settled on jaded.

 

“Do _your_ parents know?” He said it matter-of-factly. I gave a bitter smile, for the both of us.

 

“You’ll figure it out, Marc. You’re only twenty one.” What was I doing at that age? For all intents and purposes, disowned and barely sleeping so I that I could keep my head above the riptide that was my debt. He had that look that all young people had, ‘you don’t know my struggles’, I was crown prince of that look for a long while. And they were always right, no one person would ever be able to know another’s pain completely, but as much as the world had to spin round, generational divides would always have this dynamic.

 

We were silent, and I waited for him to say more, because it was obvious that he was thinking about how to put his questions into words. Instead, he stood up and walked back to the door.

 

“Can I still come next week?” The timidity with which he asked the question told me what he really meant: could we keep speaking with the same candour from now on?

 

“Of course. You know where I am. Evidently.” He quirked the only truly humorous smile I had ever seen from him and turned to leave. “Thanks. Pro.”

 

It was past seven when I left the department, successful in my mission to mark all the papers, and had even left them in a neat pile at the front desk for Joanne to find the next morning. I was still lost in my thoughts about Marc, and before long my feet brought me to the rocks. The park was quiet for a Sunday night, but it suited me just as well.

 

I understood where Marc came from: I had guessed it the whole time, anyway, but now I knew for sure. I felt for him, but there was a part of me that was also full of hate, and sneered at him. What did _he_ know? Had he paid his way through his education? Had he heard how loudly my parents used to shout? How many frustrated screams had I muffled? Did _his_ parents suddenly spring the news on him that he’d had an older brother who died when he was just five months old, too?

 

At age twenty nine and fairly established in myself, I had thought I was past this and that these things had just melted into one fact that I could take for granted and not feel anything about. All it took was one asshole kid to dredge it all up and show me that I was, in fact, still an asshole kid myself. Perhaps we all stayed asshole kids, inside, just that we kept them in a jar— mostly for scientific or leisurely observation, but once in a while it would break free and fuck things up for you. Just to keep things interesting.

 

I was muttering profanities to myself and almost enjoying my anger when someone sat down next to me. I turned, already seething and glaring, ready to tell whoever it was to go away and not bother me when I found Elio’s pale, worried face staring back at me. Immediately, I was undone and threw my arms around his neck, and buried my face into his shoulder.

 

“Are you angry with me?” He patted my back confusedly. 

 

“No, of course not.” It came out quick, unconvincing to say the least.

 

“I thought you would’ve been home already, so I went to the department to check but the door was already locked. I figured you’d be here.” I held him tighter. You didn’t need to be lost to appreciate being found, and I thanked whatever instinct it had been that told him to seek me out.

 

“What happened?” His hands smoothed my waist.

 

“Marc came by again and we cleared the air. But it just got me to thinking,” I started, and pulled back. Elio’s eyes darted all over my face, trying to compute every microscopic tick to figure out what exactly had happened.

 

“That’s good, right?” He said tentatively. His hand held mine, and both rested in my lap.

 

“It made me think how much you don’t know about me.” There was a long pause and when I looked at him, it was like a time capsule and he had the same expression as the day we stood in front of the memorial for the Battle of Piave and he was waiting for me to say yes, or no. 

 

“What do you mean?” I could tell he was trying not to jump to conclusions, his hand had gone stiff but he was trying desperately to relax.

 

“I just mean that there’s so many _things_ that have happened to me or that I have done. And I don’t know how much any of them have made me, how much they explain or caused my behaviour, to make me the man I am now. The one that loves you. I don’t know if you need to know, or if I should let you know, or if it makes a difference.” I was talking in circles, and Elio’s brow furrowed deeper and deeper as he tried to understand what I was saying. 

 

“I’ve said before, I want to know everything.” The look in his eyes told me he understood and accepted my conflict but didn’t understand the logical root.

 

“But how do I tell you everything? I don’t even know everything I need to tell.”

 

“You could write an autobiography.” I couldn’t tell if he meant it as a joke.

 

“And you’d read it?”

 

“Of course.”

 

“You could even publish it after I’m dead, make sure they write about me in the right way. If they do at all.” I couldn’t tell if I had meant it as a joke, and if I did I wouldn’t have found it funny either: Elio glared at me for uttering the thought at all. Maybe I looked like I was utterly lost, and I supposed I was, because his expression turned to one of acute pain as if he wanted to know the answer and tell me what I was trying to tell him. I embraced him again, and we clung to each other with a muted desperation that I had not envisioned at all when I left this morning.

 

“I always wondered who you were, or what your life was like. Italy was only a hiccup in your life, maybe all I got was holiday-Oliver, Italy-Oliver, I’m-writing-my-thesis-Oliver. I never feel the age difference, except now. You had had a life and had built so much when I met you. And I had nothing. Or, at least, the gaps are easier to fill.” 

 

I had nothing to say. Elio was right. I couldn’t remember alll the exact details of what I’d done or who I had been that summer, but I supposed it was the same person I was now— perhaps not the one who had been here in the lapsed, in-between years. 

 

“I’m whoever you love. You know me better than I know myself, and as long as you still love me, I’ll be Oliver.”

 

“Elio,” he whispered and kissed my cheek. 

 

I had been intent on putting Elio back together when we reunited, but _he_ had always been the sculptor. Whoever I was now, he had put him together piece by piece in those six weeks and the finishing touch was our first night together. My Oliver, his Elio… we were simultaneously creators and products, of ourselves and each other. And that is why I could not breathe without him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow, how are we feeling? I wrote this and am, myself, appalled. I did not mean to drive down this road but here we are. Let me know your thoughts, I know this and the last chapter are rather Heavy. I included that bit about the Bowie [song](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dhUKnV3k0bk) because I was listening to the album at _my_ work and thought it was crazy relevant lmao, idk.
> 
> Thank you for all the love, and I hope you don't hate me for the level of emo hahaha xx


	9. Una Festa

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is RIDICULOUSLY long, but I just didn't have the heart to cut it. This makes my heart so happy, and I hope it does yours too!!!!!!!!

In the next few weeks, I learnt little things about Elio that I did not know before and could not have known. I may spread my things out like a hurricane in my study and in my office, but Elio was prone to leaving mugs and plates in all manner of places. Perhaps it was just the young-adult ‘if it ain’t broke don’t fix it’ attitude to cleaning— he wouldn’t move something until it annoyed him. Perhaps it was a result of having been taken care of since childhood by Mafalda or simply living in a house big enough that by the time someone found your glass, they would not know it had been you who had left it there. I chided him some, but stopped when I realised it was more that he would absent-mindedly leave something in this room and go to the other to find what he had just thought of, rather than a bratty inclination of not wanting to wash up.

 

One night, I made ragù and salmon tartare, and after we finished he asked me when I learnt how to make it. I shrugged, I couldn’t remember if I had picked it up at the restaurant or from catering.

 

“Why did you choose to be a chef, of all things?” Elio asked. I smiled.

 

“Transferrable skills,” I joked. He rolled his eyes. “I figured if I was going to work in a restaurant, I’d learn to cook instead of breaking my back just serving. And there’s always a last order time, after that you clean up and you leave. Waiters, though? Have to stay till the customer leaves.”

 

He smiled a half-smile, then, as he thought it over, and then got up to do the dishes. 

 

His pager chirped more and more frequently: it had only been a few months that he had been in New York, but he had a large network of friends and they were beginning to wonder where he had been and why he hadn’t rung to catch up.

 

“Popular, huh?” I teased. He was debating whether or not to go out Friday night, did I want to come or did I want him to stay home.

 

“Yes, I’m _la muvi star_ , now. Apparently being even vaguely European is very interesting.” He moved from his end of the couch to sit in my lap, and I caressed his thigh.

 

“You should go if you want to, you don’t need my permission.” I said. He smiled and leaned his face close but just out of reach for a kiss. 

 

“You say that but your hand on my thigh seems to be bribing me to stay.” His fingers played with the hair at the nape of my neck, and I let my fingertips drift closer to his crotch.

 

“I’m not.” I said, and palmed his cock lightly. He bit his lip, smiling, and gave me a delicious gasp of anticipation.

 

“I know that the moment I leave, I’ll have wished to stay, but maybe I should go to show people I haven’t been kidnapped.” He leaned in even closer, but neither of us moved to kiss the other. The tension was exquisite.

 

“Kidnapped, huh? You are free and willing, my friend, if I recall it was _you_ who sought me out.” Elio was grinning now, and his eyes darted between my lips and my eyes.

 

“Yes,” he said softly and finally kissed me.  

 

 

When it was more Saturday morning than Friday night, I heard Elio burst through the door and pound his way up the stairs. It sounded like he had fallen into the bedroom door as he was opening it, but even entirely drunk and gone he paused for ten seconds afterwards to let the silence settle back in and check that he hadn’t woken me up. There was shuffling as he stripped off, and when he got into bed he lay down half on top of me, his arms wrapping around my head in what was almost a chokehold.

 

“I love you a lot, you know. Even though you’re so… _fucking_ big, like what’s up with that, why is there so much? Who made you?” He was babbling, in the low sort of undulating volume that usually came with the philosophical stage of being drunk. I could not help but laugh, loudly. 

 

“You’re awake, _fuck_ , I’m sorry I knew I opened the door too loud.” He mouthed kisses at my neck and jaw, like he was trying to find my lips with his.

 

“Do you want water?” I asked. He seemed barely lucid, the kind of drunk where the world was so warped that you forgot it was all in your head.

 

“No, I’m fine, I’m fine. Just kiss me, kiss me.” I did as told, but unconvinced, I got up anyway to get water and fetch the wastepaper bin in case he needed to vomit. My resolve only strengthened when he was too far gone to even whine at my departure.

 

When I returned, he had rolled to hang off the side of the bed.

 

“I think—” Without another word, I shoved the bin under him and held the hair back from his face as he threw up an impressive quantity of a peach coloured substance. When he was done, he took the water weakly, rolled over onto his back, and was out in a second.

 

It was almost eleven when Elio emerged. He sat opposite me at the kitchen table and I gave him a fond smile. He looked like hell: his curls stuck out in odd places, the bruises under his eyes were a dark lavender, and he was wrapped in one of my thick cardigans.

 

“Coffee?” I asked. He nodded weakly and made an effort to make a sound of thanks. 

 

“When did I get home?” His voice was thick and grinding.

 

“Probably about three.”

 

“What time is it now?”

 

“Almost eleven.” He sipped gingerly at the coffee and his big eyes looked up at me over the mug, asking me to pity and take care of him.

 

“Guess what you said when you got in bed.” He gave me an anguished look. “You said, and I quote, ‘you’re so big, what’s up with that? Who made you?’”

 

He groaned as I laughed and grabbed my arm for leverage as he made his way around the table and climbed into my lap. I kept laughing as he wrapped his arms around my shoulders and then my neck, over and over again until I reciprocated.

 

“Stop laughing at me.” I finally sobered and held him like he wanted.

 

“You’re very adorable when you’re ill.”

 

 

In the blink of an eye, we neared the end of November, the invisible month. Thanksgiving was approaching, one could tell from the oppressive marketing in the stores and supermarkets, and it seemed however much the turkeys cost indicated how close we were to the day. Marilyn, Josh and I would combine Thanksgiving with a pseudo-Chanukkah for ourselves and other friends, electing to stay in the city before the real festivities of winter break. One night as Elio was doing the dishes in return for my cooking, I talked to him about coming with me. We would be holding the celebration at one of Joshua’s colleague’s penthouse: it was really more of a cocktail party than anything truly Jewish. I didn’t know what I expected his response to be, but his face remained mostly neutral before his lips pressed into a line in thought.

 

“And who would you introduce me as?” 

 

“My…” I trailed off, and he shot me a cold look.

 

“See, that’s what I thought, you can’t even say the word _now_.”

 

“No, that’s not it, the word… _boyfriend_ just seems too small for what you mean to me.” He narrowed his eyes.

 

“Lover, then? You’d rather that?” I did, in actuality, but then again I’d feel ridiculous saying it out loud.

 

“I know you, Oliver. You won’t be able to say it. And that’s not your fault, not entirely, anyway.” Elio busied himself with the dishes, scrubbing more vigorously than before, and I knew the discussion was about to start closing. He was right.

 

“I’ll just say, this is Elio Perlman. He’s new in town, and I couldn’t let him spend Chanukkah alone.”

 

“And when people ask? Will you say we’re just good _friends_?” He didn’t say it accusatorially, but rather with the unamused, exasperated tone of one who knew another too well to be talking bullshit like this. I pursed my lips. 

 

“The only people who _really_ matter at the party will be Marilyn and Joshua. They’ll know what’s really between us, and I couldn’t care less about the others. Would you hate it so much if we just lied a little to some people we won’t see for the other 355 days of the year?” I held his waist from behind, and felt him relax little by little until he sighed.

 

“Fine.” I kissed him on the cheek, then pushed him to the side to take over the dishwashing, and he very naturally picked up the coffee I had been drinking.

 

“I know it’s a step for you.” He finally said, cryptically, but I got his meaning. It wasn’t that I was afraid to show people this part of my life, but it took some courage to start _truly_ upsetting the boat. In comparison, the risks I took with my education, career and financial support were nothing.

 

* * *

 

On Thursday, November 24th, 1988, I woke up early with anxiety. Elio and I went about getting ready for the day as normal, stayed in until noon and then he left to spend the day with his circle of international student friends— unaffected by the American holiday, they simply enjoyed the long weekend. We would meet up at the party later.

 

“Don’t freak out while I’m gone. I’ll see you later.” He caressed my cheek at the door and I smiled. Of course, he knew. 

 

I was useless for the entire day. I was restless and tried to do some work, but I was really only sitting and biding my time until I could get ready and leave. Just after six, I had fiddled with what I was wearing for so long that I was now late on the schedule that I had set for myself. I managed to flag down a cab and watched the streets run by before we stopped in front of one of the swanky apartment buildings in Midtown. Joshua’s friend who was hosting this year, was not only a trust fund baby but also a high-powered lawyer, and so money was truly no object. 

 

The lift opened up at the 28th floor, and directly into the apartment. I was met with a hubbub of noise, and looked both ways to see all manner of people milling around. There were staff serving drinks and canapés, and they pointed me to the main room. I was taking in the size of the room, the skylight and the ceiling-to-floor windows when I heard a familiar voice call my name.

 

“Oliver!” Joshua brought me into a half-hug around our glasses of champagne, and my anxiety diminished significantly.

 

“Where’s your lucky guy?” He asked exuberantly. I couldn’t help but grin. Maybe that’s how I’d introduce Elio from now on.

 

“Elio’s with friends, he’s coming round in a bit.” I told him. He patted my chest roughly in excitement.

 

“Can’t wait to meet him, man. Come on, I’ll show you around.” Josh gave a short tour of the apartment, interrupted every few feet to speak to an acquaintance or friend, some I had met and others were new. I was confident enough in these types of situations, but I was always a lick uneasy. Perhaps a simple symptom of being, 99 percent of the time, the tallest person in the room.

 

“Oh, _Oliver_ , right? I remember you from last year. Still a bachelor?” Wanda was a lady who could have been ten or twenty years older, always dressed eccentrically and who still held on to the sixties in the form of ever-present graphic eyeliner and false lashes. She had propositioned me last year, but of course, I did not want to be eaten alive.

 

“I’m afraid not, Wanda. It’s lovely to see you again, though, you look well.” I gave her a smile and she grinned like a lion grins at an injured, baby zebra and fingered my tie.

 

“We match, hmm?” She referenced my burgundy tie and her black and cherry-red ensemble. “Well, you let me know when you change your mind, darling.”

 

Josh offered an apologetic smile and shrug, as if to say ‘what are you gonna do?’. She was the widow of someone high up in his department, a socialite by birth, and was engaged to be married to someone else equally high in ranking: she could not be offended, and so I had to put up with it. We had finally circled back to the main room, where Marilyn had materialised.

 

“Oliver.” She kissed me on the cheek and gave me a smirk. “I hope lover boy arrives soon, five people have already asked about you.”

 

Josh laughed and I could only shrug. I hadn’t cared about these advances even when Elio and I had not yet reunited, and I certainly would pay no attention now.

 

“Honestly, why do we do this every year, I hate schmoozing.” Marilyn said something along these lines at any function that resembled this. Josh and I exchanged a look.

 

“You still seem to entertain a fair number of people in spite of that, my dear.” Josh sighed fondly and put his arm around her.

 

“You can be good at something and still not like it, Josh.” Marilyn took a long sip of champagne. “Can’t believe we put up with these jackasses.”

 

“Takes one to know one?” I teased. Marilyn rolled her eyes.

 

“We’ll call it making sure that people read my reviews.” Marilyn wrote a column in The New Yorker reviewing books, and had built a fair enough reputation that a now-unfortunately-large part of her job involved either kissing ass to get her reviews the right publicity or having her ass kissed by people asking for padded, bulked-out reviews. Josh patted Marilyn’s shoulder.

 

“Let’s accept that kissing ass will be part of our fate at least until the next milleni—”

 

“God, _what the fuck_?” Marilyn almost spat out her champagne, and was now gaping openly, eyes wide.

 

“That’s him, isn’t it? What the fuck, Oliver? You never said he looked like he was painted by John William _motherfucking_ Waterhouse.” I turned, and there indeed, Elio stood in the open arch that served as the entrance to the room, his long fingers wrapped around a champagne flute. I waved, and he grinned with relief as he made his way over. Josh barked a succession of incredulous laughs.

 

“Damn, Oliver. You really know how to pick ‘em.” But I barely heard him. Elio was no longer wearing what he had been wearing when he left the house earlier today, instead he sported a tight, perfectly fitted, white shirt and dark emerald green suit. He wasn’t wearing a tie, but as he neared, I saw the glint of gold that was his Star of David, nestled perfectly in the space between his collar.

 

His eyes were darting between Marilyn and Joshua, a nervous, showy smile on his face. He was too stunned to do much when I hugged him.

 

“You look positively edible.” I said lowly into his ear, and when I let go, the anxiety in his eyes was gone and replaced with a triumphant, knowing gleam.

 

“You said the other day that you needed to start eating more _greens_.” He raised his eyebrow, and a wolfish grin spread across my face to match his.

 

“Come on, break it up, break it up.” Marilyn jeered. We formed a little circle with Marilyn and Josh, and I could feel myself beaming. Here stood all the most important people in my life.

 

“Elio, Marilyn and Josh. Marilyn and Josh, Elio.” Josh grinned his mega-watt Gene Kelly smile and shook Elio’s hand while Marilyn remained dazzled. Of all things, she held her hand out to be kissed, and he did.

 

“Enchanté.” She said, and held the hand Elio had kissed to her chest. We shared a look at her American pronunciation, Elio smirking.

 

“Oh, no, the pleasure’s all mine, to be sure.”

 

“Gosh, Oliver never said you looked like _this_ , no wonder he’s been besotted for five years.” Elio laughed but shot a look of slight alarm at me, but I smiled and shrugged to show him it was just the way she talked.

 

“Welcome to the family, kid.” Josh said. At this, both Elio and I were shellshocked, and Elio’s hand sought the fingers of my free hand. It meant so much, and I had not anticipated such sentiment to be expressed so easily. I kept mostly silent as Marilyn and Josh grilled Elio about his research and Italy, getting to know him. I only stepped in when I thought he was being overly modest, and in true Elio fashion he was only too happy to elaborate on his achievements after that. I stared at him, and it hit me again how much older he was now. He was his own man, and spoke with a subtle and endearing confidence. He was no longer the professor’s son trying to get a unique word in edgewise at dinner drudgery, he was on his way to becoming an authority on Glass, Satie and music. 

 

“Of course! Of course, it’s music. I suppose you play music for Oliver and Oliver shows you books and sculptures that remind you of each other.” Marilyn was incredulous at the information coming from his mouth but was, thoroughly and involuntarily charmed.

 

“That’s secret.” I said, and Elio and I exchanged a look of pure joy and knowing.

 

“You know what, Elio, there’s a piano somewhere on the other side of the apartment. Why don’t you play something.” Josh said. Elio refused at first— I knew he was shamming, he would do it eventually: he thrived on audiences like this. We made our way to the grand piano that sat next to an entire wall of ceiling-to-floor glass, in the corner of what appeared to be a reading room. Elio caressed the wood-top before opening it up: the piano was of premium quality, and obviously went unused unless a pianist was hired. He sat at the stool and, slowly, people turned their attention to the beautiful stranger who had appeared to provide them with entertainment. The dim lights of the party cast a warm glow just around the piano, and the image of Elio in his green suit against the ink blue of the sky in the background and the gleaming piano was sublime.

 

He readied his fingers on the keys and started playing. The piece started softly, drawing people in and a berth started to form around the piano. It bloomed into something faster, his right hand flew all over the keyboard while his left kept a steady bass. At this point, people had put their conversations on hold, now, and were whispering about their pleasant shock that there was anyone playing the piano at all, and how could he be so _good_? Elio’s shoulders rolled with the control he was exerting as the piece fell back into something quieter and choppier like the beginning, giving people a reprieve to realise that they had fallen in _love_ with him. The whispering stopped altogether as the piece geared into its final triumphant quarter and in the last burst of notes and keys, I looked around the room and felt the most singularly unique colour of pride and awe in my heart. The performer at the piano, whom everyone was captivated by, was in turn captivated by _me_.

 

The piece, and the trance that everyone had been in, finished with one, final heroic flourish and as applause erupted from around the entire apartment, Elio finally looked up and sought my eyes only. He was smiling his purest, truest smile and I beamed back. He got up from the piano, and with some cheering and encouragement took a small bow. He bobbed small, shy bows to the people who complimented him as he walked past before he ended up in front of me. In such a public setting, all I could do was give him a proud smile and clasp his shoulder, and let my fingers brush his neck the slightest bit as I let go.

 

“I’m speechless, Elio, that was wonderful.” Marilyn had ceased her awe and attraction and had transferred it into admiration. She squeezed his arm and he nodded shyly back.

 

“All those years playing around on the keys finally payed off, I guess.” He responded modestly and both Marilyn and Josh could only scoff. I shook my head in mock disapproval but smiled at him with infinite fondness. How was he mine?

 

Our circle of joy had not yet broken, and all of a sudden Wanda slinked up to us, a glass of what was surely whisky in tow.

 

“Josh,” she drawled and placed a languid hand on his shoulder. “I can’t believe you know both Oliver and our delicious little pianist. Do introduce.”

 

This was something we had not anticipated. Josh was quick, and darted a look at me.

 

“Wanda, Elio’s new in town and I brought him with me. Can’t have anyone spending the holidays alone, can we?” I gave her my best smile, hoping that she would not jump Elio’s bones at once.

 

“ _Elio_? Jewish and Italian, you’re just so interesting, aren’t you, Mr. Piano Man?” To his credit, Elio stuck out his hand and held Wanda’s like you would with the best of all high society ladies.

 

“Pleased to meet you, Ms Wanda.” He gave her a winning smile and despite Wanda’s usual in-control demeanour, she giggled like a schoolgirl. 

 

“Oh, now, you’re just too cute.” He let go of her hand, but she only made her way closer and picked up his Star of David. “Oliver, explain yourself. You play hard to get and then bring dessert with you, how could you be so cruel?”

 

Her voice remained teasing, but as she looked up from Elio’s body to my face, her sly smile morphed into a fond, almost motherly, knowing smile.

 

“Ohh, I see,” she let go of Elio and patted the Star down. She looked from me to Elio, and back again before taking a step back. “Elio’s _your_ dessert, isn’t he, Oliver?”

 

I had no idea what to say, and Elio now had a look of full blown alarm on his face. As gracefully as possible, I gave my best, coy ‘you caught me’ expression and she laughed full-throatedly.

 

“Oh, my loves.” She patted my chest fondly. “Won’t tell a soul. Now, come along, Elio, my dear friend Dennis from the American Composers Orchestra has been asking about you— you too, Josh, dear.”

 

Elio shot me a look of infinite excitement as he realised she meant the director of the ACO, and then they were whisked away. I followed them in the crowd with my eyes, and then they disappeared around the corner back into the main room.

 

“You love him _so_ much.” I looked down to find Marilyn had been quietly observing me the entire time and I could only shine with pride. She looped her arm through mine and we walked through the apartment to a quieter corner.

 

“He’s something special, Oliver. Just… _lovely_.”

 

“That’s Elio.” I was drunk on more than just champagne. It was not a public declaration of our relationship, but the feeling of the entire room loving Elio awoke a new, almost transcendent level of love in me. How could a person as pure as Elio and the love we had for each other ever appear repulsive to anyone? How the crowd had responded tonight gave me hope that it would not be all hellfire when we made ourselves as public as anyone else.

 

“Leaving you was the best thing I ever did.” Marilyn said this smugly and nursed her champagne glass. “I know I’m a broken record, but I’m so happy for you.”

 

Tears sprang to her eyes and began rolling down her cheeks. I put my glass on the floor and wrapped her close. I hadn’t held her like this for a long time. 

 

“I know we’re good now, and you probably know as much… But for a while I kept thinking, I wished that you hadn’t gone to Italy. If the plane had just crashed and you _died_ it would have been better than how I felt, then.” It was my turn to shed tears now. I turned my face away, so as to not get her hair wet.

 

“It was _ugly_ of me, it was wrong. But that’s just how angry I was. And you knew it, you weren’t stupid. We didn’t even need to say it. But, now? Now? I can’t believe I had wished so much hurt on you two. Look at him. He’s beautiful. The way you look at each other… I—” I shushed her now and wiped gingerly at her cheeks so as not to disturb her makeup even more. It hurt me to hear what she was saying because I still thought she had every right to be angry with me; that was why I had never mentioned it in the first place. Marilyn was not one to bottle up anything, and the fact that she had held on to this for so long meant she was truly guilty about it, and needed this moment now.

 

“I don’t blame you for _anything_ , Marilyn. Everything you felt and feel now…please, don’t feel guilty. Please.” She nodded against my chest and let go, stepping back. She took a deep breath and gave a stretched smile.

 

“I’ve had too much. And it’s not your job to hold me, anymore, I have a Josh for that. I’ll get him to take me home.” She pressed a long kiss to my cheek and patted my jaw before she waved her fingers goodnight. I picked up my glass from the floor and downed what was left in it. 

 

“Hello, stranger,” Elio had appeared next to me. I smiled fondly, and it took everything for me not to kiss him now.

 

“You were amazing.” He looked down at his shoes and back up. 

 

“The piece was Busoni’s. _Danza_. I played it for you.” He bit his lip and scuffed the toe of his shoe on the ground.

 

“Oh? Busoni how Busoni would have played it? Or compounded with Liszt? Liszt, and how many others?” With each tease I inched closer and closer, and his grin grew wider and wider.

 

“Busoni, altered to be played in the style of Elio Perlman, deeply in love.” 

 

I opened my mouth and closed it again, imagining that I had captured his lovely, rosy, bottom lip between my teeth. Elio’s tongue darted out to lick his lips, and I could tell he was wishing he had it down my throat.

 

“Home,” he breathed, and that was all it took for me to take him by the elbow and march us out of the apartment. I waved brusquely to the people who asked why I was leaving so soon, though it was now past one in the morning.

 

The ride home in the cab was excruciating but added to our desire, and by the time we made it through the door, we were both past the tipping point. I pressed his back to the door and he laughed into the kiss, fingers already making their way to my waistband. We made it up the stairs clumsily, refusing to part and continuously undressing.

 

We made it, finally, to the bedroom and Elio tripped as he was stepping out of his boxers, falling onto the bed. He laughed to himself and I unhooked the offending garment from his feet and covered his naked body with my own, we clasped hands and I held them above his head, my knees pushing his legs open. We moaned intermittently as our cocks brushed against each other between us.

 

It was a while before we made any move to go further, and I realised we were both deliriously happy, smiling and grinning and laughing between kisses. Even as we were moaning, even as he begged for more, even as I held his throat, even as we came, we stayed deliciously light, fresh and _exultant_.

 

When we finished, we laid side by side on the bed, his left hand clasped in my right.

 

“If this is what happens when I play—”

 

“Oh, I’ll buy you a piano, alright.”

 

We laughed, into the room, into the house, into New York, into the galaxy— we were lying atop the very apex of the universe.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AHHH!!!!!!!!!! Let me know your thoughts down below, I am so in love with how in love they are. The song I have (tried) to describe is Busoni's [_Una festa di villaggio, Op.9 No.5: Danza_](https://open.spotify.com/track/2EZqfbq2cjpMSmJzVojQxI?si=OhyvuqqYTaSCP0nDeiN5pA), you can only listen to the full thing through Spotify, I'm afraid. 
> 
> As for 'John William motherfucking Waterhouse' let me point you to exhibits [a](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:A_Naiad_or_Hylas_with_a_Nymph_by_John_William_Waterhouse_\(1893\).jpg), [b](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:John_William_Waterhouse_-_Echo_and_Narcissus_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg), and [c](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:The_Awakening_of_Adonis_-_John_William_Waterhouse_\(1899\).jpg) for your perusal. 
> 
> I had so much fun writing this, thank you for all the love!! <333


	10. Leaving on a Jet Plane

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm telling you now we're dipping into angst. This has been a PSA.

In the morning, I awoke to Elio licking his way down my chest. He grinned from between my legs as I came to, and began sucking at my balls and the base of my cock. He licked all the way up before sucking at the head with his lips like it was a popsicle he was giving his best effort to melt down— my favourite manoeuvre.

 

Elio meant business, and kept a steady rhythm slurping me down and just as I thought he could not be more dedicated to the task at hand, he pressed at the sensitive ring of flesh that, thus far, had been neglected and fucked me with his finger, as well.

 

“Happy Thanksgiving,” he smiled, his lips were still shiny with saliva and my come. I grinned.

 

“Let me give my thanks.” I said and carried him in my arms to the bathroom as I was determined to reciprocate in the shower. 

 

 

Elio sat at the kitchen table as I made eggs and bacon for the toast and I could feel his gaze on my back. When I sat down, he said a dreamy thank you and rested his chin in his hand, still staring.

 

‘What?” I smiled. He shook his head.

 

“I can’t believe how much I love… Dennis Davies.” He laughed at my disappointed eye roll before pouring me the coffee that he had made his magic way and kissing me on the cheek as consolation. 

 

“Go on, then, tell me how it went.” I conceded and let him have his fun. 

 

“Well, he complimented my playing— obviously he’s not going to invite me into the orchestra, necessarily, but who gets compliments from the director and founder of the ACO just off the cuff?” I smiled at how excited he was. “Anyway, we spoke back and forth about my research and not only did he help me out of the small rut I was in, but he gave me his information and told me to contact him anytime if I wanted to ask him or Philip Glass _himself_ any questions.”

 

“That’s amazing, I can’t believe he was just _there—_ and because of Wanda, too.” Elio laughed at the mention of her.

 

“I was terrified of her the entire time, she’d figured us out just like that.”

 

“I hope you weren’t overwhelmed by Marilyn.” 

 

“Oh, no, of course not. She’s lovely.” A pause. He picked at his eggs: he wanted to ask a question but wasn’t sure if it would ruin the mood.

 

“Go on,” I smiled at him fondly. He gave me a sheepish smile.

 

“She’s terrific, but she’s so… different. From me. What did you like about her?” I shrugged. 

 

“We started dating the summer after we had both graduated. We came from the same background, held the same kind of ‘fuck-the-world’ attitude, and we understood each other on that level. Obviously, that’s the kind of spirit that Marilyn still carries with her, perhaps more polished and better directed now, than it was. But I drifted away from that and then _we_ drifted apart.” It was hard to connect who I was now to who I was then. Binge-drinking, smoking a pack a day on top of pot, gambling and then turning around the next morning and marching into Columbia to sit in the library and do research or file papers for my tutor— I thought I was superman for being able to tread the line so well. I could not imagine Elio ever loving that iteration of me.

 

“Hmm,” Elio mulled this over and ate more of his food. “I can imagine you, in that period.”

 

“Really?” I quirked an eyebrow. I couldn’t see it myself, but it would be interesting to hear what he thought. He nodded and looked at me over his cup. 

 

“That night at Le Danzing, when you were dancing with Chiara. And then _Love My Way_ came on, and you had your eyes closed and I could see the music… _move_ you. That moment.” He smiled fondly, a faraway look in his eyes as if he remembered everything about that night and could be transported back in a second. I smiled into my coffee.

 

“I wonder what Chiara’s up to, now.” I mused.

 

“I’m right, aren’t I? Don’t change the subject.” He grinned and leaned forward, as if he had made a discovery: he _really_ wanted to piece together who I had been. I sighed and smiled, giving in.

 

“Okay, yes. I mean that summer, with you, with all the long, drunken dinners, playing cards again, being around all of you who were so young and energetic. It took me back to who I had been, but it also wasn’t entirely the same.” I said, Elio listened with fervour. “Marilyn and I… partook in a touch too much hedonism. We thought we were so terrific and rebellious for being so upstanding in the day and then debauching at night. It was excessive, like we were trying to drive ourselves into the ground.”

 

“I suppose you don’t really need to write an autobiography, after all. My very own Dorian Gray.” He raised his eyebrows at me and I laughed.

 

“Perhaps.” Elio took what he got and didn’t push it, happy with the large slice of information I had volunteered in comparison to the usual small morsels. It wasn’t that I didn’t _want_ to tell him, but it felt strange to me to just sit and tell stories.

 

 

On December 3rd, the night before Chanukkah, we were setting up the menorah, and I asked him about his flights home. We decided it would be too messy and hasty to try and rearrange plans to spend the holidays together: we would spend it with family as we originally planned. 

 

“What time are your flights?”

 

“I leave JFK at one in the morning on the 23rd.” Elio fiddled with the fairy lights we had decided to string up around the mantle. Though we were going through with the plan, and our separation was still three weeks away, he became sensitive whenever the topic was brought up.

 

“I’ll take you to the airport for eleven.” I replied. He nodded and hung his head.

 

“Call me before you start driving. I’ll wait by the phone.” He was speaking as if these were our last words to each other before one of us embarked on a year long voyage on the sea. I hugged him to my chest, and smoothed the hair at the back of his head.

 

“Your parents are picking you up from the airport, yes?”

 

“Of course.” And then, it occurred to me.

 

“Have you told them about us?” Elio drew back, a perfectly innocent expression painted nicely on his face.

 

“Not yet. Last time they called me I told them I had to change my landline, and gave them your number instead. They said they wanted to call, for Hanukkah.” I raised my eyebrows, but it was entirely in character for Elio. I supposed he would rather do it in person, and even then he’d probably wait until the last day of the holidays because he couldn’t find the words.

 

“You know, I think you should move in. Officially. In the new year.” I said. A slow smile spread across Elio’s face.

 

“Really?”

 

“Of course. It’s only practical, you hardly ever spend any time at your flat. And almost all your things are here now, anyway.” Elio bit his lip.

 

“Okay.” He finally said, and I pressed my lips to his.

 

“I’ll go and break the news to Germain, now.” He said and ran upstairs to the phone.

 

 

 

The next morning, it was barely six and still dark outside when the phone rang. Elio and I both groaned. 

 

“Why? It’s too early.” I moaned. Elio stretched and got up.

 

“It’s probably my parents calling from Italy. Who else could be awake?” He mumbled.

 

“Hello?” I could hear the sound of static and someone speaking, and then, my stomach dropped and I shot up just as Elio held out the phone to me: now fully awake, wearing the most ghastly Hitchcockian look of dread.

 

“Your mother.” He mouthed. _Fuck, fuck, fuck_ , was all I could think and I took the phone from him.

 

“Mother, happy Hanukkah.” I said. Even to my own ears, I sounded too cheery and overcompensating.

 

“Oliver. Happy Hanukkah, I hope you’ve set up your menorah properly.” Her tone was even, but perhaps even icier than usual: in true Frances Dilon style, she was going to go full cognitive dissonance and pretend it never happened.

 

“Of course, mom. You know I do it every year.”

 

“Well, every year you’re still my son I’m going to keep calling and make sure you’ve done it.”

 

“Alright, tell dad happy Hanukkah from me.”

 

“Alright. Love you.” And just like that, the conversation was over. Having been swimming in Elio-induced bliss for the past months, I realised why I hadn’t said ‘I love you’ sooner. All throughout my childhood, my mother had said it constantly but always as neutrally as possible and it served as a synonym for ‘goodbye’ but also as a threat to remember that I should not do anything to disgrace her. It was worlds away for what it meant to me now.

 

“Fuck, I’m sorry.” Elio blurted. He had stood next to me the entire time, wincing. I shook my head.

 

“Stop. It’s not your fault. I forgot she does this every year, and even then it shouldn’t be a worry that anyone should have in the first place.” Still anguished, Elio hesitated and squeezed my arm as comfort. 

 

“What will you do now?” I sat slowly down in the armchair. I was not going to bring it up unless she did, and I could not predict when or where she’d approach it. It felt like I had a hollow space in my chest that was now rapidly expanding. I kept jumping from the thought that I was done for and an almost relief that my mother now knew I was living with another man and I would not have to say it out loud. In a way, I anticipated getting straight to the yelling and not having to set her down and ‘come out’ as it were.

 

“Oliver, please, say something.” His eyes darted all over my face and his arms hovered awkwardly as he couldn’t decide whether I was in need of a hug. I reached out, and he sat in my lap, holding my head to his chest.

 

“It’s okay. It’ll be okay. I’ll deal with it when it comes.” I said. Elio remained unconvinced, but did not press the issue further and kissed the top of my head.

 

 

In the next few weeks, Elio and I were quieter than normal, each preparing for what he had to face at home. In comparison, being apart no longer seemed as big a problem. With no further calls or distress messages, I assumed mother had not discussed it with anyone and that I had not been excommunicated. The process of packing Elio’s things and moving them over to the house should have been a joyous, exciting one but neither of us could savour the moment. 

 

“What is this, a state sale?” Germain had chided. The Wednesday that he had been home to see us packing things, he was wearing an orange polo, sporting a ready-to-wear version of Dali’s moustache, and had his hair coiffed à la Danny Zuko. Neither of us were in the mood, especially not facing someone who looked like a high fashion Fred Flintstone.

 

“Gee, okay, I’ll back off. You better take me to dinner sometime for finding someone to take over your contract, Elio. You, too, Oliver.” He gave a pout and shrug as if to say ‘it’s only fair’ and left the flat again. It was not the first time I had met him, but every time I did I struggled to understand how Elio had met such an eccentric, absurd character and liked him enough to live with him.

 

 

December 22nd. The big day. Elio moped around the house and sat in my lap or wrapped his arms around me every chance he got, and refused to close his suitcase which had been sitting in the living room, now, for weeks. He didn’t want to finish packing, he said, because it meant he was really going to have to leave. 

 

At ten, we called a cab and remained silent the entire way to JFK. When we got out, I got Elio’s suitcase from the trunk and had started to roll it up the sidewalk when I looked back to see Elio standing still with tears streaming down his cheeks. I wiped down his cheeks and gave him a sad smile.

 

“Hey. It’s not forever. It’s twelve days.” I said and tried to grin to reassure him, but felt tears spring to my eyes, too. It was too close to when we had to say goodbye the first time.

 

“But you won’t even be there for my birthday.” He started sobbing, then, and even in public I had to hold him. I bundled him up and started walking him into the terminal. Elio dragged his feet, but eventually took charge of the suitcase once again.

 

He checked himself in, and the tears threatened to spill again when the girl at the counter asked if the single window seat ticket booked for Linate under Perlman was correct. At this stage, my heart started thumping loudly, too. It was dread at seeing Elio so upset, it was dread at having to spend the next three days alone, dread at the inevitable conversation or fight with my mother, and dread at Elio not being there to catch me if— or, rather, _when_ — I was broken and disowned.

 

We sat in a corner of the collection of benches that made up the departure gate. There were too many people, and they were all too happy. All of them were excited to spend their vacation in Italy and Elio and I were inconsolable. We sat with our knees touching and hands just brushing where they rested between us. 

 

“All ready to board the 01:25 plane to Linate, Milan.” The air hostess called and as people around us rose and shuffled to collect their things, blood rushed to my ears and everything was muffled except for Elio. His eyes were already red, his nose was red, and his lip trembled.

 

“I love you.” He said. I hugged him close one more time.

 

“I love you, too. Call as soon as you land.”

 

“Call me every chance you get.” 

 

We walked silently into the queue to get on the plane, and even as Elio was only three people from the front, it didn’t feel real that he was leaving until the woman at the counter handed him back his ripped boarding pass, and he turned in that small space between the gate and the tube that led to the plane. I raised a hand to say goodbye, and he gave me the saddest crumple of a smile you had ever seen before turning and almost running to the plane. If he had walked any slower, he would have started bawling then and there.

 

I was now, truly, in it alone. Of course, I had always been in it alone. The consequences would reverberate, and would ripple into every single _goddamn_ facet of my life, but just like the day I had been born: I was left to fight my parents _alone_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ow ow ow ow ow I'm sorry, I'M SORRY. My heart is breaking, too.


	11. The Swamp

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *********TW: lgbt slurs
> 
> I'm on a bit of a brain wave and am procrastinating on my term papers, so here's another update. My fingers just slipped!!

I got into bed that night at near four in the morning but was still entirely awake, my mind racing. At some point, I drifted off due to exhaustion and when I woke up it was still only barely past nine. It hit me now that the only effective cure I had found for my insomnia, the only thing that was guaranteed to get me to sleep was Elio. Elio’s touch, Elio’s breathing, even if he was just in the house and not in bed with me I could rest. I was exhausted but had so much pent up anxiety that I had to get up and run. There were close to two hours until Elio would land and be able to find a phone to call me from.

 

I did sprints around Central Park, and the exertion and pain in my lungs took over my worry and anxiety— in a way, this was better. Just as I returned and I was struggling to get the keys into the damn lock because of my shaking hands, I heard the phone start to ring and raced to pick it up.

 

“Elio?” I heard a great shuddering sigh that was almost a sob and was brought back to the call I made that winter.

 

“I’m calling you from the airport. I’m waiting for my parents, now.”

 

“I’m glad you landed safe.” He gave a bitter laugh.

 

“I was worried about _you_ the entire flight. I wish I had stayed in New York so it would at least be easier for you to call me if anything happened.” It was my turn to give a pained sigh.

 

“Don’t worry about me. Enjoy your holiday, your parents will have been missing you to pieces. And Mafalda? Anchise?”

 

“Okay,” he said it like a lost child. “Call me soon.”

 

“I love you.” I said.

 

“Elio,” he whispered and then he was gone again.

 

After showering, I decided I had had enough and hastily stuffed what I guessed was enough clothes for the five days in Newport and my stash into a duffel bag, and left the house. I couldn’t be in it and _not_ think of Elio, couldn’t be there and hear the silence pressing into my ears. I took the subway north to Kingsbridge, and by the time I knocked on the door of Marilyn and Josh’s house I could have fallen to my knees with the weight of my fear and physical exhaustion.

 

“Oliv- are you okay?” Marilyn answered the door, and I burst into hysterical tears at her expression of concern— more appalled at me than I had ever seen her, and that must mean I looked just as hellish outside as I felt inside.

 

She shushed me and wrapped me inside, picking up the duffel with her. She set me down on the couch and rubbed my back as I held my head between my knees, trying to calm down. I vaguely heard Joshua come down the stairs, and by the time my crying fit had subsided into the almost-more-horrible hiccup stage, he had set down a mug of tea in front of me.

 

“Oliver, tell us what happened, hmm? You’re okay now, baby, we have you.” Marilyn put on her soothing voice, and like a child I actually calmed down.

 

“Mom called on Chanukkah. At six in the morning. And Elio answered the phone because he was expecting his parents to call. And now, Frances knows— Frances knows _everything_ and she’s going to kill me, I’m going to die and I can’t be at Elio’s birthday and I’m—” I burst into hysterics again, and I did not know where it was coming from. Josh moved from his seat in the armchair to the other side of me on the couch. This was not like the other times I had reacted to moments filed under ‘family disgrace’— it was not like the time I had finally said I had never applied to medical school and was going to Columbia for Classics in the fall, it was not like the time I told them I had started working as a line cook and so had not shown up to Dad’s office to start my job as had been arranged, it was not like the time I told them Marilyn and I had broken the engagement. It was hitting me that this was the final straw between having a family and not, and I realised what it was that drove men and women to hide their sexuality and live in hiding for forever. I had not even come up with a term to describe my sexuality, but it didn’t matter if I had or hadn’t— I was going to be the reason for the grit and disgust in my mom’s voice as she said _gay_ and _homo_ and I was going to be that full throated laugh my father gave when I was twelve and we were playing golf with his friends and one of them had called another a _faggot_ for a weak swing. I didn’t know if it was denial or a delayed reaction, but I had been able to feel removed before, and now that it was _happening_ I was so, _so_ afraid.

 

“Oliver, Oliver. Listen to me. We’re going to get you through this. You are not alone. Josh and I will be there the entire time, you say the word and we pull you out.” Marilyn was hugging me but was also gripping the backs of my arms like she was bracing me for action, and as she did in any situation of distress she remained level headed and started spinning solutions as matter-of-factly, authoritatively as an army general.

 

“If you don’t want to go, we’ll cover it. Book a chauffeur, say you’re down with something.” Josh offered. I shook my head vigorously.

 

“No, I want to do this. I need to do this. No better time than the present. I didn’t know how to bring it up to her in the first place, and now it’s done for me. Mom would never believe any excuse anyway.” They exchanged glances over me.

 

“I’m serious, Oliver. I’m worried.” Josh held the mug up for me and I drank it down quickly.

 

“I’m going. Fuck it. It was going to happen one day.” I put the mug down, and that was it for me. The gavel had been struck down. I was going to go in there, and if Mom didn’t end up bringing it up, I would do it anyway. I would turn thirty next August. I had Elio, I had Marilyn and Josh— I had enough people in my life  that fulfilled it and I did not need her to bring me down. How long could I keep letting her haunt my decisions?

 

I spent the day sitting and thinking, psyching myself up for the drive and five days stuck in another state with parents and every single gossipy relative I had. Marilyn and Josh walked gingerly around me as they packed for the drive tomorrow, in case I burst again and only spoke to me to check in. When Josh called me to dinner, I realised I was behaving like a sulking teenager.

 

“Okay, Oliver. Eat. And talk.” Marilyn was going to take me out of my mood whether I wanted it or not.

 

“About?”

 

“I’ve never seen you like this morning. And no wonder, your parents are absolute demons. But I want you to walk through what happened. I don’t think this is one that you can just…walk off.” I looked at Josh, and he gave me an expectant quirk of his eyebrows.

 

“What can I say, Marilyn? She scares me _shitless_ , she always has and we haven’t even gotten to Dad. And I—” I stabbed into a piece of pasta as I sought the courage to spit the words out of my mouth. “I can’t fucking believe that after all this time and all the bullshit that I still _care_. Why do I care what they think at all?”

 

Opposite from me at the table, Josh had a faraway look and was staring at the middle of the table. We were good friends now, but he’d only heard recounts of mine and Marilyn’s upbringing and now it was all hitting him in the face. Marilyn grabbed my hand.

 

“Ol. Oliver. I need you to hear this. You are not weak for caring. Every kid on earth wants love and approval. You don’t have to squash it.” She was right and I needed to hear it, but every time I thought about how they made me feel growing up I wanted to jump out of my skin and set it on fire.

 

“This time is different. They yell and yell, ‘I can’t believe I have a son like this’, ‘how did you turn out like this’, but this time? After this they won’t even see me as… _human_.” I had sworn not to cry again but choked on the last word. All Marilyn could do was squeeze my hand even tighter, and out of the corner of my eye I saw Josh wipe a tear away.

 

We spent the rest of dinner in silence, because what was there to say after that?

 

* * *

 

By morning, I managed to catch a few hours sleep, but my eyes and face were swollen and I looked like all hell. Marilyn pressed ice to my face as we waited for coffee, and then we set off to the suburbs to pick up the older relatives. Bubba and great aunt June lived together now that their husbands had passed, and were inseparable. At 80 and 78, they still had their health but no patience and no filter. 

 

“Congratulations, my dear, but don’t you think you could have dressed less like a hussy on your wedding day?” She had said to Marilyn just as we were taking the family portrait at the wedding, and that was why I had to drive Bubba and June.

 

I rang the doorbell to their house and their maid answered the door looking frazzled.

 

“Oliver, right? Great. Would you get their things to the car, it’s been a difficult morning.” She rushed back into the house before I could say a thing and as I moved the two suitcases into the car I could hear Bubba arguing with the maid as she walked down the stairs.

 

“You will change the sheets every day even when we are not here, do you hear me? I will not have dust settling in my bedroom. For the night we return I want you to make a light chicken soup, and remember to light the fires. Small comforts to make up for the horrible car journey.” The maid nodded vigorously, saying ‘yes, ma’am’ every three seconds. 

 

“Oliver,” as Bubba made it down the stairs she held out her arms to me, and as usual I bent down to let her kiss my forehead. The way she said my name in her affected, Transatlantic accent made me smile every time.

 

“Bubba, aunt June.” I kissed them each on the cheek and opened the car doors. “How are you on this fine morning?”

 

“It’s cold and wet, and I’m getting too old for all this hubbub.” June replied, and wrapped her mink collar closer around her neck. As always, Bubba insisted on sitting in the front seat.

 

“Darling, you? I’m the old one.” I smiled and shook my head, strapped myself in and prepared for the next four hours of driving.

 

“What have you been up to, Oliver? Are you busy? You should visit me more.”

 

“Teaching is teaching, Bubba. I’ll visit you more if you want me to.” I said this now, but in a matter of days even she would not want to see me. Despite my parent’s disapproval, Bubba always supported me in some way. She nitpicked, but she always called during my college days to ask if I needed money. You have my work ethic but it skipped your mother’s generation, she would say, try raising a family and saving a business during the Depression. 

 

“When are you working on another book? I did read your last one, I showed it to all the ladies at the club, too. They’re not very smart, they didn’t understand it. But they saw your picture in the dust jacket, and that did it for them.” She patted my hand on the steering wheel and grinned at me. “Doris wants you to meet her granddaughter, and I said fine but the girl is overweight, I won’t have my Oliver set up with just _anybody_.”

 

“Bubba, don’t say that about the poor girl.”

 

“Maybe not, I’m sure she’s perfectly nice, but that _Doris_ has been trying to beat me in cards for months.”

 

“I tell you, Loretta, you should just tell her to get lost to her face.” I could see June roll her eyes through the rearview mirror.

 

“Maybe I will, June, but I won’t stoop so low unless she does. But let’s not talk about that cow, are you seeing anyone, Oliver?” My heart started kicking up and I could feel my fingertips pulse against the steering wheel.

 

“I am, Bubba.”

 

“Are they nice? What do they do? Bring them to my house, soon, hmm? And bring a picture so I can show the girls at the club we have high standards.”

 

“Mmhm, yeah. A pianist.” I wasn’t sure how long I could go on like this.

 

“Well, you know I have a piano, dear. You _have_ to visit me now.” She started talking about how she was reminded of one of her friends as we drove into Connecticut. June started up again, and I was allowed to just be quiet as I drove in the oddly soothing sound of the two old bats babbling away.

 

It was almost two by the time we made it to Newport, June had insisted we stop in the diner at the truck stop which took an extra hour and a half because she argued so much with the staff. It was never going to end well— how was a woman who insisted on making her own mayonnaise from scratch for her finger sandwiches every single day going to eat in a diner?

 

When we arrived, the wide driveway that Josh had described was lined full of cars and we could see people inside the house milling about with food and drinks.

 

“Fashionably late arrival, as I always insist.” June said smugly, and I rolled my eyes fondly— the diner incident had all been a ploy. They headed inside and cousin Bradley held the door open as I brought the luggage through. As always, he was wearing as few layers as possible because he was a Chicago man now, and nowhere was as cold as Chicago.

 

“Hey, Oliver!” He insisted on grabbing me around the shoulders even as I was still holding the luggage before taking one of them from me. “I’ll show you where to take them.”

 

We went up to the first floor of the gigantic house and got to the end of the hallway.

 

“June’s room is just through here,” he pointed and I set the luggage down, and then he came in the room too, standing uncomfortably close.

 

“Listen, man. Do you have any pot on you? This quarter’s been rough, and I just spent three hours on a plane with two toddlers and a pregnant wife. Women, right?” Even after all these years knowing him, I was still stunned at some of the shit that came out of his mouth. I remained in his mind the convenient fuck-up cousin who could get him pot whenever he wanted. I sighed. 

 

“Yeah, man. But I don’t have a lot.” I rolled him one as thin as possible— because, of course, Bradley always wanted to smoke but had never learnt how to do it himself.

 

“What are you talking about, man, you’re Oliver! Thanks for having my back, bro.” With no more smalltalk, he left me in the room and made his way downstairs. I sighed to myself. This was family, all right. I felt the same weird shift that happened every year: I was older, and so was everyone else, but we assumed the same dynamics as when we were kids. Family was family, sure, but being around mine made me feel like I was being buried alive in a pile of quicksand in the middle of a bottomless swamp.

 

I made my way downstairs again, and who could have been waiting for me there except my mother?

 

“Oliver.” I didn’t know if I was imagining it but she sounded more stoic than usual, and her ice queen eyes seemed to shoot right through me. Out of complicity, I kissed her once on each cheek as I always did.

 

“I hope you took care of your grandmother.”

 

“Of course. We arrived later than planned because June wanted to eat at the diner.” She pursed her lips.

 

“Well, go and say hello to everyone else. Your father’s in the study with your uncles.” She said that, but the look she was giving me was saying ‘move one muscle, I dare you’. 

 

“Whatever you want, mom.” I finally said and stalked off. Oh, she knew. Frances knew.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let me know your thoughts!! Thank you for all the love xx


	12. Iron Maiden

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: Toxic parents; shitty parent is shitty.
> 
> Another!!!! Because I'm crazy and have no self control when inspiration strikes. Read on!!

I milled through the house, greeting everyone and got lukewarm responses back, nodded to Marilyn and Joshua and then found my father smoking a cigar and drinking whisky with my uncles like he was an extra in The Godfather.

 

“Son,” he opened his arms when he saw me, and like every time this happened he first shook my hand with an iron grip and then thumped me in the back as a hug. Mom’s brother, Willard, called for my attention.

 

“Hey, Oliver, you’ll know somethin’ about this. My buddy Lewis wants to buy a statue but all that idiot knows is that he wants one of a naked woman,” a pause as they all erupted into laughter. “And I told him, hey, my nephew knows some shit about those, and he asked me to ask you which one you’d buy.”

 

He reached for the pouch that had been by his feet, and pulled out photographs.

 

“They’re all by prestigious sculptors. Roman reproductions, of course, but—”

 

“Just tell me which one, it’s no difference to me or him,” Willard said impatiently. I pointed to the one that they would think was the most salacious.

 

“Oh, what a dog you are, Oliver. Lew will love it!” They all laughed again.

 

“Where is your friend getting these statues anyway, five of them for him to choose from just like that?” It was suspicious to say the least. Willard shrugged and puffed a mouthful of cigar smoke like he was a chimney.

 

“Lewis trades in Europe, the rules are different over there. Anyway, I don’t ask and he doesn’t tell, it’s as simple as that, kid.” And gave me a pointed look. From across the room, my father peered at me over his whisky.

 

“Come on, Will. Oliver’s soft, he wouldn’t understand even if you explained.” They all laughed again, and I left the room to supposedly chummy jeers, ‘couldn’t I take a joke?’.

 

 

The first meal of the family gathering was always ridiculously gigantic. The long table in the dining room of the house fitted twenty people and so the seats went to Bubba, June and our parents and the rest of us had to stand around and eat off our plates in the living room.

 

“Hey, you holding up?” Josh stood next to me, both of us leaning with our backs to the wall. I shrugged.

 

“Mom was more passive aggressive than usual, if that’s possible. But dad is still speaking to me, so that means she hasn’t told.” He nodded and patted my arm.

 

“Have you seen Bradley? He already smoked whatever you gave him.” Josh pointed to the dining table where Bradley had been allowed a place with his pregnant wife Vivian. His eyes were tinged with pink and his head swivelled dreamily from side to side to follow whoever was talking.

 

“I didn’t even give him that much.” I snorted a laugh.

 

“What a punk,” he scoffed. There was a lull and Josh scuffed his shoe in the carpet.

 

“Listen, Oliver. I just wanted to say… sorry. I knew it can’t have been easy for you with your parents, but I didn’t _really_ know till now and I wish I gave you my support sooner. I wish I’d made more of an effort to get to know you when we were kids. Then you could have had a shoulder to lean on in this… madness.” He waved a hand out across the room.

 

“Don’t say that. It’s water under the bridge. It can’t have been easy for you to just jump into the family of the guy your mom married.” He looked me in the eye now, and I gave his arm a squeeze. He lifted a corner of his mouth in acknowledgement of our understanding. It made me feel somewhat better, and at least the first day was done.

 

 

Our second day tradition in Newport was to join the Christmas trolley tours. It was, perhaps, an unlikely activity for a forty strong Jewish family, but everyone liked taking the tour on Christmas Day around all the expensive houses to judge the decorations.

 

Frances’ glances at me throughout the day and the fight we were going to have was looming closer and closer, but among the gaggle and substantial noise that our family created, it was possible to put it closer to the back of my mind.

 

We were around family all day. Frances would want to do it with as little people in the house as possible, and she would not ask me to join her somewhere else around town because she would never cause a scene. Her constant looks boring into the back of my head meant she was gearing up to do it, and that meant the most probable time would be tomorrow just before dinner when people were just beginning to come back from the usual individual activities.

 

 

The next day, it was decided that all the cousins were going to a park that had a frozen pond and enough snow for a toboggan. My father and the rest of the men were going to go out on a boat, and the ladies were going to see if the shops were open and knit clothes for Vivian and Bradley’s soon-arriving baby. All I heard was that when I got back, Frances would be there ready to trap me.

 

I had that strange feeling of anticipation and dread in my chest the entire day, as the others screamed and played in the snow and on the ice. As the hours went on and on, I tried to anticipate what she would say to me and prepare responses. I got worked up as I imagined it, but then I’d look up at something or someone would fall and I would forget what I had prepared. A futile exercise. 

 

At five, everyone decided they had had enough and it was almost entirely dark so we began walking back towards the house.

 

“You’ve been in your head all day.” Marilyn said lowly, walking next to me.

 

“Frances is at the house right now. She’ll ambush me before Dad and the others get back from the boat and there’ll be less people in the house.” I said this with the fervour and conviction of a conspiracy theorist. Marilyn hissed a string of profanities.

 

“That’s exactly what she’d do.” She was quiet and had her brows furrowed as she tried to find a solution. Of course, there was none.

 

 

The walk up the hill back to the house was a mockery— the elements were playing a trick on me: I had to walk myself up the damn hill like a fool, knowing I would be pushed all the way down soon, so to speak. We all headed upstairs to change out of our sweaty clothes, and as Marilyn and I parted on the third floor landing, she nodded to me once more in support. I had taken off only my snow boots and coat, and though I had been thinking about this the entire day, anticipating the entire day, preparing the entire day— my mother still managed to catch me off guard.

 

“You’re back, finally.” She appeared in my doorway like some kind of vampire that had to be invited in. She was dressed in a white cardigan and matching, sensible white dress underneath with a thin, magenta, floral patterned silk scarf tied around her neck. Frances dressed fashionably, just as well as any of the socialites and debutantes she grew up with, but I had remained confused my entire life at the amount of colour in her wardrobe and the contrasting ice inside of her.

 

“Mother. How was the shopping trip?” She closed the door behind her as I said this and sat herself down in the one chair in the bedroom. I turned to change my shirt and stall, to prepare for the onslaught ahead.

 

“No. We're not going to gloss over this any longer, what about the time when I called your house at six thirty in the morning, and a man answered your phone. Remember that? I called your house at _six_ thirty in the morning and a _man_ who was _not_ you answered _your_ phone. Would you care to explain?” Straight for the jugular, and ripped the skin off my head at the very same time. Despite all the fights we had had, despite my adult age of twenty nine, the severity of her tone made me flinch— this was why she had been extra stoic. She had been _saving_ it. But I had been saving things to say to her, too.

 

“You make it sound like you meant to catch me and snoop.”

 

“Don’t change the subject. Only guilty men have things to hide, and you were hiding.”

 

“Well, it sounds like you’ve figured it out. You were always quick, mom.” 

 

“You will not be sarcastic with me, Oliver James.” I shut my eyes and tried not to scream at the use of the first and middle name combo supreme.

 

“Don’t call me that.”

 

“It’s the name I gave you and I’ll call you whatever I want.” I scoffed, because we had had this conversation before and because, now, ‘whatever’ would include all of the ugly names she had ever called anyone who showed feelings for other men.

 

“It wouldn't matter if you didn't use it as a threat, mom!” 

 

“All you’ve ever known how to do is rebel and run. From responsibility, from your father and I. And now you have to be _gay_ , too? I have _one_ son and he’s going to refuse me grandchildren.” If I was angry before, it did not compare to now.

 

“I am not gay.”

 

“Oh? The man who sleeps in your bed and answers your phones begs to differ.” I wanted to keep looking her in the eye but the worst thing about my mother was that I looked exactly like her. I had her face mapped onto my father’s frame, and it made me so indescribably angry because how could someone who looked so much like me, someone who was so undeniably my blood, someone who was so obviously my mother— how could they speak with so much _hate_?

 

“Not everything is just black and white and fits in neat little boxes. We’re having this conversation because all you’re trying to do is figure out if I belong in the bin labelled ‘homos who go to hell’ in your _fucked up_ little head.” As soon as I said the words, I could not believe I had said them. I turned away as a look of pure shock and hurt crossed her face.

 

“What did I do to deserve _you_?” Her sneer on the last word stabbed straight through my heart into my soul, and I felt the tears burn their way down my face. “What did I do that God had to kill my James and give me _you_? You’ve done nothing but fool around and throw away everything we ever gave you.”

 

“I made my own way through college. I haven’t used _any_ of your money since I moved out.” My chest ached with being too full with all the things that I had wanted to say to her loaded words, but she would only misconstrue and nitpick and never, truly hear me.

 

“We spent so much putting you through boarding school, on your clothes, the doctor because you were sick all—”

 

“Can you hear yourself, mom? Am I supposed to pay you back? Am I supposed to pay you back for keeping me alive when I had no say in whether or not I wanted to be born? I didn’t ask to go to boarding school! Have you ever entertained the _thought_ that children aren’t investments? You can’t write up a life like a business plan and just force someone to follow it. Do you have any idea how suffocated I am?”

 

“Suffocated. _You_ , suffocated? All you can talk about is wanting to be free, free to waste your life however you want but you don’t even know what it means to be suffocated.” I rolled my eyes and it took everything not to punch a hole into the wall.

 

“Oh, and _you_ do?” She shot up from her chair, took one step and slapped me across the face. I didn’t even feel it until I realised my head was turned to the left and the sound of the slap echoed in my ears. She stood less than a feet away from me now, and we were both crying angry tears: there were dark spots where her tears had rolled down and soaked into her scarf. My burning, slapped cheek was probably the same colour.

 

“I was in medical school when I got pregnant with your brother. Your father forced me to quit. It took me a year to recover from the birth, and in that time your father slept with half of the damn city. And then he wanted a daughter. Let’s have a daughter and rekindle our relationship, he said. I got pregnant with _you_ and there were complications, and I was in the hospital for the last three months. Guess where your father was? Between the legs of some floozy. Your brother started preschool, and in weeks he got pneumonia and then he was _gone_. And what do I have to show for all this? A grave in a cemetery with my son’s name on it marked 1956 to 1959 and a son who has spent his life running away from me.”

 

This was too much. I stepped back from her and backed into the wall, and Frances went back to her chair, crossing her arms over her chest. I felt drained and hurt, but I was trying to fight it: I didn’t want to let her guilt me into stepping down, but when I heard her story in that way I could no longer demonise her. These were the reasons why Frances behaved the way she did. I was tired of fighting her, and the reason we fought so much was because the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree—we both turned our pain into anger.

 

“Have you ever thought that I wanted you to run _with_ me? It’s a two way street, mom. You and dad just always chose to stay put.” She looked up at this and there was something new in her eyes that I could not place and had never seen before. But as soon as it flickered in, it flickered out again and she became Frances, iron maiden.

 

“You are the singularly most inconsiderate child in the world.”

 

“You never gave me the chance to consider _anything_ , mom!” I laughed incredulously, I could not believe her fucking logic. “Was I supposed to fill all of that in just from seeing you being sad all the time and think ‘yes, it must be because daddy sleeps with other women’? Or should I have figured it out when you finally pulled out the big guns and used James against me to guilt me into going to medical school?”

 

“Get out.” She stood and opened the door, pointing into the hallway. “Get out. I don’t care if you have to walk back to New York. I don’t want to see you.”

 

I threw everything I had brought with me haphazardly into the duffel bag and put my boots back on, and without another look at my mother I stomped out into the hallway.

 

Marilyn, Josh and Bubba were standing on the landing, all shellshocked.

 

“Oliver—” of all people, I had not wanted Bubba to have heard everything, and I stormed past and down all the stairs. At this point, the others started looking up but I didn’t care. Frances could deal with the collateral damage however she wanted. 

 

“Where are you going?” Bradley asked, stunned.

 

“I’m walking the fuck back to New York like your aunt Frances told me to.” 

 

I stormed out of the house and realised I had forgotten my big snow coat, but it was too late now. I’d get hypothermia before I turned back to breathe the same air as Frances Dilon for one more second. I made it all the way down the hill and on to the sidewalk when I heard Joshua yelling after me.

 

“Oliver! Oliver!” His footfalls crunched loudly in the snow as he tried to catch up. “Hey! _Hey!_ ” 

 

Josh was bellowing now, and he could keep running if he wanted to. He grabbed my arm as he caught up, pulling me back, and in my state of rage I had pulled an arm back ready to punch him. Before I could do anything else, _he_ pushed me in the chest and I stumbled, dropping the duffel. I pushed him back and then tried to throw a punch at his stomach but he out-manoeuvred me and we fell to the snow, grappling until Josh was sitting on my back with my arms twisted and my stomach burning from where my skin touched the snow.

 

“Are you done, you big bastard?” He yelled. I nodded, and he got up off of me before holding out a hand to help me up.

 

“I’m driving you back.” He said. “You’re not going to argue with me. You’re going to get in my car, and I promise to take you wherever the _fuck_ you want, okay?”

 

Now chastised, I started trudging back up the hill with an extra eye roll from Josh and when we got to the top, Marilyn and Bubba were standing outside in the cold next to Josh’s car. The look on Bubba’s face was as serious as I had never seen it, and as we approached she walked slowly forward and for a second I thought she was going to slap me, too.

 

Instead, she held out my coat and wrapped it around me. My heart broke to see tears streaming down her face and know I was the reason for them. She touched my cheek, and as she did so I dabbed the tears off her face with my sleeve.

 

“Go.” She said softly. “I’ll deal with your mother.” 

 

I was sure she had talked to my parents about me before, but it was the first time she— or anyone— had said so directly to me that they were willing to fight my mother on my behalf. 

 

“Bubba—” she shushed me severely.

 

“You don’t have anything to explain or be sorry for. Go.” 

 

Marilyn was sobbing, herself, and so elected not to get in the car. The two best women in my life waved goodbye as Josh started the car down the hill.

 

“Where am I taking you?” 

 

“JFK.” He glanced at me, and it didn’t take long for him to intimate what I meant to do.

 

“You have your passport?” My rush of anger-induced momentum stopped, then.

 

“No,” I said. There was a beat and then Josh started laughing. I almost had a heart attack as his big laugh reverberated through the small car, but I started laughing, too, as the slate of rock that had been sitting on my chest since December 4th finally lifted.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AHHHHHHHHHHH!!! What do we think??? Frances is Something but I hope, in a way, you don't hate her completely-- people are so complex!! Happier times in store next time xx Thank y'all so much for all the love, love seeing my regulars in the comments!!!!


	13. Wherever You're Goin', I'm Goin' Your Way

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> YAYYYY!!!!!

By the time we got back to the city, it was past nine. I appreciated Josh’s silent acceptance in this instant. I needed Marilyn for how she was always willing to jump into solutions, fix-its and pep talks but all I wanted to do right now was think. I couldn’t verbalise what it was that I felt. It wasn’t as strong as relief, it wasn’t hurt— I was just _still_. Like the moment right after you fluff a duvet in the morning and can see dust moving through the air and sunlight right after.

 

I begged Joshua to stay the night at my house and drive back to Newport in the morning: it was too dangerous to drive in the snow. I would take a cab down to JFK, and catch the next flight for Linate.

 

“Give me the number for Elio’s house. I’ll call in a few days, when things die down.” I scribbled the number, which I had memorised by heart, on to a scrap of paper and with one final blessing from him, made my way to the airport.

 

I had made it just in time to take the same 01:25 flight that Elio had taken. The only seat available was in business, but I took it anyway. Nothing was going to get in my way— I was determined to make it and have Elio in my arms before time moved forward and it was no longer the day of the twenty third anniversary of his existence on this earth.

 

I took a drink at the meagre bar that was still open, the bartender—if you could call him that— looked as if he had just turned twenty one and they had hired him because he had opposable thumbs and understood the concept of pouring. I spent the remaining time at the gate jittery, and resumed an old habit of shaking my leg up and down. As with my sleep, the stillness was short-lived and my heart had begun to simmer again and perhaps I let it happen because it was what I was used to.

 

“All ready to board the 1:25 plane to Linate, Milan.” I couldn’t believe it, it was the same woman who had done the announcement as the day Elio had left. It was a small detail, but I took it as a positive omen to decorate my iron resolve with, and I could barely keep from hugging her as I passed through the metal tube and onto the plane.

 

As people passed me in the aisle to board, I started to sober and realised what I was doing. I was so incensed with energy and determined to be by Elio’s side that I hadn’t realised the significance of finally going back. Back to where it all had _started_.

 

When I left that summer, I had thought about returning in the winter or maybe the year after but as the months wore on my courage dwindled and dwindled. People always say that they’d love to have you back, but when did anyone really mean it? And after that final, heart wrenching call to Elio— he had whispered his name into the receiver and it was like my heart would have torn out of my chest and jumped onto a plane right then and there. I decided, then, to simply cut him out of my life and hope hope against hope that I would forget the feel of his body under mine, the feel of limbs just touching under the water in _heaven_ , the feeling of my fingers brushing against his when I went to light him a cigarette.

 

One of the goals of that summer had been to work on my Italian and be able to represent myself with as little help as possible from translators in the future. But when I had returned to New York, I avoided speaking it as much as possible. I would use it for a few responses when necessary and then charm my way out and continue in English. Reading it was bearable, but to speak and hear the way the language pushed air and sound around the mouth, the throat and the chest brought me straight back to Crema, and I would wish to be swallowed by the ground and hope that it would be kind enough to open back up right on Monet’s berm.

 

Italy and everything about it threatened to rope me back into my futile fantasy, but now I didn’t have to be afraid anymore— I was _living_ it. I had been afraid to set foot in the country at all, even somewhere as different from Crema and Milan as Venice, because a chip of my heart belonged to the country itself. Elio held my heart, and I would go wherever he wanted to take it. But Italy would always hold a candle for me— it was where all the art and culture I studied was kept, it was where my favourite food came from, and it was where I had let myself _live_ without thinking the entire time of when I had to resume reality.

 

Everything would be different now, in the winter, but I couldn’t wait to simply be back, eat the simplest _pomodoro_ pasta from the restaurant on the piazzetta, light a cigarette with one of their matches and look at the moon shining over the church dome cross.

 

I downed a few more glasses of wine, and they were only too happy to oblige in business class, and before long fell asleep— dreaming of the way the fire crackled in the old villa at night and sipping _rosatello_ as Elio played Handel before bed.

 

“Sir, we’re landing in twenty minutes.” The beautiful, blonde air hostess who had been serving me wine just a few hours ago had her warm hand on my shoulder. I grinned to myself and gave a thank you before bringing my seat back up. I had not expected to be able to sleep more than an hour or two on the flight, even with the wine. One sleep, as easy as that, hey presto, I was on a different continent.

 

As we landed, I looked out the window to find that it was mid-afternoon and the plane was landing just in time for the final act of the sun’s daily ballet. 

 

_Ladies and gentleman, thank you for flying with us today. I hope you enjoy your stay in Milan, and safe travels to those of you going on to another destination. The time is now 3:18 in the afternoon, six hours ahead of Eastern Standard Time. It has been a pleasure flying with you, have a good day._

 

The chorus of impatient clicks as everyone threw off their seat belts that always sounded after the final announcement of the flight brought me back to my mission. With only my duffel, I soared through immigration and rushed up to the taxi stand before anyone else could.

 

“ _Stai bene, signore?_ ” The driver was startled at my bursting so suddenly into his vehicle.

 

“ _Sì, va tutto bene adesso, amico mio! Crema, per favore_.” He laughed and shook his head.

 

“ _Sei pazzo, amico._ ” I laughed exuberantly and felt adrenaline run through my body and felt the pulsing even in my lips. I was really in Italy, I was really speaking Italian, I had been in New York ten hours and four glasses of wine ago, and now— I was only minutes away from _Elio_.

 

My heart thumped loudly in my chest and I pointed things I recognised out to the taxi driver, he already thought I was crazy anyway. Even with everything covered in snow, I could recognise paths that Elio and I had cycled on together, where I would ride back during the night after a poker game, where I had fallen off my bike, and where once I had taken a piss and almost fallen into it midway on a drunk journey home.

 

As we began to turn down the smaller roads that led to the enclave of villas, flanked by banks of snow in the fields, I gripped the duffel in my lap tighter and tighter and the simmering in my heart had graduated to something more like the moment before a nuclear explosion— the moment before the atom was split and spilled its energy out all across the world.

 

The sun was now on the horizon line and cast shadows against the now-bare trees of the driveway onto the ground towards the old villa, and lit everything a warm, pale, peach. Perhaps it was a stupid observation, but I still marvelled at how it was exactly the same. It had stood there before Elio and I met, it was standing just the same now and it would continue to be there even after we died. As we neared, I saw that all the shutters were closed except the one right of the front door. The person in the window was staring at the cab as it came up, and then I realised it was Elio’s aunt, Matilde, the first person I had flirted with that summer. How far we’d come.

 

She was smoking a cigarette out of the window, and squinted now to see who I was. I paid the driver hastily, ‘keep the change’, and as I got out of the cab, her eyes had adjusted and she gasped, cigarette falling from her fingers into the thin bank of snow that had not yet been cleared.

 

“ _Ulliva!_ ” She exclaimed. I could hear the taxi driver still laughing as he reversed and pulled away. I raised an arm hello, beaming already, and it was not ten seconds before Elio burst through the front door. He exhaled one quick sound of disbelief, and I dropped the duffel at my feet, opened my arms and he ran straight into me: arms around my neck, face buried in my shoulder and legs swinging as I spun him around.

 

There was a commotion as everyone else made it out of the house and exclaimed their pleasant shock, but all I could hear was the sound of my own deep, loud, warm laughter. Even to my own ears, I had never sounded this happy, I had never been this relieved and I had not been this _free_ since I left in 1983.

 

 

Eventually, Elio got down but continued to hold me around the waist even as everyone bombarded me with questions. They were mainly coming from Elio’s aunt, Mafalda and even Anchise but the Perlmans hung back. Finally, Annella reached out with a knowing smile.

 

“Welcome back, my dear.” She squeezed me close, and in that one hug I felt five years worth of sentiment— she had worried for me, worried for her son, and now felt warm relief at the fact that we had found each other again. And ‘back’? She spoke it as if I _belonged_.

 

When I looked up, Samuel was smiling wide and trying not to beam, but burst into his ridiculous, tinkle of alaugh anyway, and I couldn’t help but do the same.

 

“I knew it, Oliver. This is the most delightful surprise.” He hugged me too, and I could have started crying happy tears. “Now, let’s all get back inside, hmm?”

 

We chattered away, and I looked down at Elio to find him giving me the most loved up little smile and I could have kneeled and took him into my mouth right then, in the middle of the snow.

 

“Elio, will you take Oliver’s things to your room?” Samuel quirked his eyebrows at both of us. He knew we would both be in it for the duration of my stay, and the look in his eyes told me he was saying the line just to mirror how it had all happened before.

 

Elio pushed out the hastiest of ‘sure’s before he dragged me up the stairs and I could only grin. I missed the bannisters, I missed the wood floors, I missed the heavy doors, the tapestry that hung in the stairwell— and then, Elio threw open the door to his room and it was like nothing had changed. I was looking at all his posters and the mess on his desk, but he took the duffel and threw it to the ground before taking my face and kissing me harder than he had ever before.

 

His plush, wet lips against mine, his tongue trying to get down my throat just as much as I was trying to get mine down his, the way he gripped my sweater to press his body against mine as much as he could. I pushed us down into the bed, and in the fall we landed on the soft mattress, the sheets and the duvet in a cloud of camomile soap and the faintest smell of sleep that Elio also left in our bed in New York. 

 

Our kiss had slowed and become languid but no less deep: we were remembering each other, we were remembering being back in New York, we were remembering that summer but it was also like we were pressing time itself together. We were kissing each other in the bed where we had first made love, and in some inexplicable way we were kissing versions of each other that we had missed in our time apart, like this was the wormhole of the universe— this was our new starting point. This was the beginning of the rest of forever.

 

“Happy birthday,” I finally whispered against his lips and he laughed, pushing my shoulder so that we rolled onto our sides and could embrace each other and lay parallel from chest to feet.

 

“It’s happy, now, with you here.” We simply smiled at each other and basked in the feeling of being in each other’s arms again for a while. But eventually, the initial rush of excitement, exhilaration and surprise dimmed and Elio’s face began to fall— colouring with the worry he had been holding in his heart for me.

 

“How did it go?”

 

I shrugged. I didn’t want to bring down the mood. And I was on another continent, in the arms of my lover, in the country that held my greatest memories— Frances could not touch me here. I wouldn’t let her.

 

“She told me to get out. I did. I decided the only place I could go was wherever you were. And voilà. _Sono qui_.” His brow furrowed with hurt for me, and he pressed his lips to mine again. He looked up at me with a world of concern swimming in his green eyes, and I gave him a quick grin.

 

“Later,” I said and I got up, taking him with me. His eyes tightened for a second, trying to decide if I was really fine. “For now, you still need to turn twenty three.”

 

“Technically, I was born at four in the morning so that ship has—”

 

I pulled him in for one more kiss.

 

“Shut up.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What did we think!!! I hope I did the moment justice ahhhh!! As you probably know, I've gone for the film's timeline in this instance ie. Oliver never went back that Christmas. #doitforthedrama 
> 
> Thank you for all the love as always, you guys are an amazing bunch!! xx
> 
> (Thank you to @ReginaBoo for correcting my Google translated Italian!!)
> 
>  _Stai bene, signore?_ = Are you ok, sir?
> 
>  _Sì, va tutto bene adesso, amico mio! Crema, per favore._ = Yes, everything is alright now, my friend! Crema, please.
> 
>  _Sei pazzo, amico._ = You're crazy, man.
> 
>  _Sono qui._ = I'm here.


	14. Sanctify

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> !!!! This chapter is lowkey special to me, read on!

When we made it down the stairs, everyone was already in the dining room. Elio’s aunts, uncles and assorted cousins were milling about the table and sipping the wine that Samuel was serving. Mafalda was bringing out dish after dish, and as I took in the room and chatted as much as I could in the Italian I had managed to hold on to with Matilde, I realised that we had never had dinner in here before. All summer long we had dined outside in the garden or in the courtyard, and even though the difference now was only due to the practical necessity of being out of the cold— it felt to me more intimate and I was not yet sure where I fitted in.

 

Elio was sat at the head of the table on one side with Samuel at the other, Annella sitting to his left. As I took my seat, I realised mine and Elio’s configuration mirrored theirs and laughed to myself. Perhaps it was prophetic. 

 

“Elio, I can’t tell you how wonderful it is to have you home with us again. You’re twenty three now, and so your mother and I probably have no business pestering you, but we’ve missed you since you’ve been in New York. I know that you are thriving,” Samuel glanced at me now, and under the table, I felt Elio curl his leg around my shin. “And you will only make us more proud as the years go on. Happy birthday, my son.”

 

The speech ended with a loud chorus of ‘cheers’ and ‘happy birthdays’ and other vague noises of happiness. The rest of the dinner we spoke of New York. Elio had to hesitate and give vague answers, and I smirked because I knew the real ones. 

 

Was he eating well? _Oliver cooks every night and I wash the dishes._ Yeah, he had regular homemade meals, maybe an occasional pizza. No, American pizza is horrendous. 

 

What did he spend his free time doing? _Oliver._ Oh, this and that. Going out with friends. 

 

How was his flat, it wasn’t too dingy was it? _I’ve moved in with Oliver as lovers and we hardly ever leave the bed._ Not bad at all, his roommate is very nice.

 

The interrogation turned to me then and I did my best to laugh them off or answer as vaguely as possible. It was Elio’s turn to step on my foot at the white-lies I was spinning. 

 

You should have come back before now! _I’ve been in love with Elio this entire time and I couldn’t bear to bait either of us again._ I was sure you were all sick of me! 

 

Why such a sudden arrival, someone could have picked you up at the airport! _I am actually running away from my mother, who hates me_. It was a birthday surprise, I wouldn’t miss his birthday for the world! 

 

How did you two meet again? _Neither of us could bare to be apart any longer, but it was Elio who had the courage to finally reach out._ Just bumped into each other one day. Small world, right?

 

The question was directed at me by Elio’s uncle, but when I answered I could feel Samuel and Annella looking over expectantly. When the interrogation finally ended and the conversations drifted into more individual ones, I could see Elio glancing at me out of the corner of his eye.

 

“What?” I asked, smiling. He had a pensive look in his eyes and gave a small smile before returning to his food.

 

“Later,” a playful taunt.

 

After dinner, we moved to the living room and Elio and I sat side by side on the couch closest to the fire, and we sipped on espressos and rosatello. This was already half of my dream.

 

Elio picked up a cigarette and put it between his lips but turned to me and gave me a look. His curls were messier than usual with the winter static, his cheeks were a ruddy pink because of the warmth of the fire and his _perfect_ lips pursed just-so around the cigarette. I lit it for him, and even though we were inside and there was no danger of a wind, he cupped his hands around mine.

 

“I wish I could play you something, for your birthday.” I said lowly. His family were still in the room, his cousins running circles around the furniture playing tag: in the name of Elio’s birthday celebrations their parents had caved and allowed them Cremona’s famous nougat even after dessert. In the noise, Elio and I’s corner was wonderfully intimate.

 

“Maybe I could teach you something, and if we’re lucky you’ll have learnt it at least _half_ decent in time for my thirtieth.” I laughed and pinched his thigh. As he laughed at his little joke, I took the cigarette from his idle fingers, and he gave me a playful glare.

 

“Do you really think I would be that bad?” 

 

“Hmm, perhaps not. Your fingers are long but big which might make you clumsy, then again you’ve proven yourself to be quite dextrous.”

 

“Oh?” I smirked and slipped the cigarette back between his lips. It was probably clear as day to anyone in the room that we were not just simple friends, but it seemed everyone had accepted it quite naturally.

 

“I’ll play. The greatest gift for any musician is an audience. Any requests?” He asked, and I smiled. 

 

“Surprise me. I’ll love everything, anyway.”

 

It was already close to eleven, and so Elio played the simpler, quiet pieces that I so loved. He played a Bach, then a beautifully undulating Liszt, a Schubert at Matilde’s request.

 

“Okay, just one more,” his small cousins were now all either lying down or sitting in the laps of their parents, completely tired out but even then they all made sounds of distress at the imminent end of his beautiful playing.

 

When he started, my heart jumped as I instantly recognised Handel. This was all I had wanted, without having to ask all my dreams had been checked off one by one. But as it went on, I had to stifle the inappropriate, alcohol-lubricated giggling fit that threatened to bubble out when I realised he was playing _How Beautiful Are The Feet_. 

 

The song finished, and everyone gave one final round of applause as Elio stood from the piano and took a bow. The family hugged and said goodbye, I got kissed on the cheek countless times, and was told they hoped to see me again soon, perhaps before I left. As we all moved slowly to the front door, Samuel hung back to walk next to me.

 

“Pro, I should have called you to ask—” He shook his head and patted my arm with a shush.

 

“Explanations can wait till tomorrow. And whatever it is, you know I already don’t mind. Rest well, hmm?” He smiled once more and walked out the door to send everybody off, just as Elio came back inside. His father gave him one more kiss on the forehead and a final whisper happy birthday, and then he was in front of me, arms around my waist and leaning his head back playfully.

 

“Did I play well?”

 

“You always do.” I smiled and steered him by the hips to head up the stairs once more.

 

“Did you catch the last song?”

 

“You almost made me laugh out loud, and mirth is not necessarily what the _Messiah_ intends to inspire.” He laughed and squeezed me playfully.

 

Much slower than this morning, we got to his— our— room and I closed the door. When I turned back, Elio was standing in the middle of the room, at the foot of the bed, a sliver of moonlight streaming in to give him a lovely haloed silhouette. I smiled, and walked over slowly to embrace him. It was like the first night all over again.

 

I could feel his heart beating against mine, each quick and erratically different, but as we held each other and swayed to our silent song, they slowed and became in sync. I held his waist and the back of his neck, and as we spun slowly, I took everything in and remembered.

 

There were still the same posters on the walls, the ones he’d ripped from magazines or that had come with records, the ones he had drawn. The same nightlight on the bedside table. His desk was layered with stacks of books and manuscripts, the clean spot in the middle that was for whatever he was working on perhaps now featured the typed pages of his research rather than a transcription. The closet, as always, was just slightly ajar, and so was the door to the bathroom and through it I could see the same bright lapis tiles. 

 

“What did you end up doing with my shirt?”

 

Elio leaned back slowly and turned, opening the closet. There were only a few haphazard hangers that featured clothes he had brought with him for this trip, but off to the very end of the rail hung ‘billowy’, as he used to call it. Gingerly, as an archaeologist handles ceramic fragments, he took the hanger off the rail and held it up against his chest as if asking my opinion on how it fit him. He had kept it in his closet as if I was still here and would return any minute. Elio walked closer and held up the right sleeve, turning it so that I could see the cuff and the now-missing button.

 

“I took it with me my first year in Rome. My first night out with the friends I had met at the dormitories, I wore it. So that it would sort of be like you were there. I guess I thought— I wanted you to know where I was in my life. That I had grown.” He draped the shirt over his arm so that he could hold the cuff in his palm like it was an injured bird.

 

“I wore it like you were protecting me. And on that night out we went dancing, and drinking and in the club— it was heaving with people, you couldn’t tell who was dancing with who because everybody was so drunk and squashed together. And then a girl in my group tried to get my attention, she was pulling at my sleeve, in the commotion she tore the button off. I was so drunk I didn’t even realise until I got in bed. And then I cried and cried because I had been so reckless with the one thing that I had left of you.” He finally looked up, and I held his cheek. He was upset even now, and we already had each other.“At winter break I left it in the closet here. I didn’t want to be reminded of what I’d done to you.” 

 

“I have a confession.”

 

“What?”

 

“The postcard. I didn’t want anyone but me to see it, it was in the drawer in my desk at the office for a while. I’d look at it and be reminded, but after that last time I called you I couldn’t bear to look at it anymore and I buried it under a pile of old record books in one of the cupboards.” Elio’s brow creased with melancholy.

 

“When we get back, put it up in the house.” He finally said. 

 

“I know just the place.” I kissed him and draped the shirt over the foot of the bed.

 

We laid down, me on top of him, kissing down his neck and chest just like the first time. I undressed him slowly, and he undressed me, and in the winter there was a new and odd but delicious sensation of slightly cold hands on hot chest and thighs. He shivered when I pushed my fingers inside him, and now it was from pleasure and the knowledge of what would come next rather than inexperience and newness. I entered him completely in one go, and Elio grasped and pulled apart the cheeks of my ass to keep me there. He wanted to savour the moment, and every second of our lovemaking imprinted in my skin. This time was singular, unique, and unhurried. So many times we egged each other on and raced to orgasm for the pleasure of seeing the other in ecstasy, and those times were momentous in another way. But right now, we savoured our connection, being grounded in each other, and the present.

 

I made love to him like his body was sacred— because, I supposed, it was. In loving him, I felt _good_ and _whole_ , and he was salvation from my sins and demons. I dove into his body, and he accepted all of me, enveloped me, and I felt like a new man every time. But this day, this night, was my second _tevilah_. Perhaps it was blasphemous to think of it that way, and my relationship with God these days was flickering and tenuous— but I think he could forgive me. If He loved me, He would allow me this peace and reprieve. For just this _one_ thing in my life that felt good and normal and left me as unworried, unblemished, untainted, and immaculate as the day He made me.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you enjoyed this!! I wanted to approach the subject of reconciling religion and sexuality at some point. I'm not Jewish myself (and if this chapter is offensive in any way I will take it down), I think anyone who is not-straight and grew up in a religion where someone lives in the sky and tells you not to be gay goes through something like this. I'd been figuring out how to write it and then [Sanctify](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9e5_oOHKvZo) by Years & Years literally just came out and it just captured that moment of empowerment and bliss in such a reconciliation so well, and voilà!
> 
> Also Handel's [How Beautiful Are The Feet](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sDljVsysnGw), the soprano and pianist in this clip are absolutely perfect. 
> 
> Thank you for all your kudos and comments, truly truly appreciate it!! All the love as always xx


	15. Traviamento

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Perhaps it's the pace of me physically writing this, but I feel like I need to take it down a beat and really savour every moment of their stay in Italy because it's so important to them. This chapter is mostly fluff but builds emotional foundation (I tell myself, maybe I just like writing them happy).
> 
> The song I was listening to while writing was [Baby](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ONIJXHvoynw) by Donnie and Joe Emerson. It's a beautiful song and fits so well!!

 

When I woke in the morning pale, winter light was streaming through the shutters and my first thought was surprise at how differently coloured things were in the winter. I blinked the sleep from eyes, and turned my head to look for Elio. He was sitting up, though still as naked as the day he had been born, and had a book delicately balanced in his long-fingered hands. I stretched and gave an automatic, satisfied grunt as the vertebra at the base of my spine popped back into place.

 

“What time is it?” 

 

“It’s just past one in the afternoon. Mafalda’s making something with the salami her and Anchise have been curing, she insisted on waiting until you—” his next word morphed into a moan as I rolled over into his lap and took his cock into my mouth. In no time he was fully erect and I made sure the sounds I made were as loud and lewd as possible. I held myself to a high standard with regard to technique, but with Elio —perhaps it was a musician’s thing— it seemed he didn’t care what I did just that it be as loud and wet as possible.

 

After he came and was utterly destroyed, he slumped against the headboard and his head lolled back to expose his neck. I got out of bed and kissed the column of his throat.

 

“And it’s only 01:21, too.” 

 

 

As we finally arrived downstairs, my hair still soaking wet from my shower, I apologised profusely to Mafalda but she waved me off.

 

“No, no, you need your rest. And I wanted your opinion on the salami, no one else around here truly appreciates the art of meat.”

 

“Damn right.” Elio snickered and I turned meaning to glare at him for making such an immature joke but ended up laughing anyway.

 

Samuel and Annella were already sitting at the dining table and talking, and as we walked in they looked up and beamed.

 

“ _Il cauboi_ has arisen,” Annella smirked fondly.

 

“I’m sorry for making everyone wait, the plane journey doesn’t get any easier even the second time around.” I explained, and she shushed me.

 

“Just teasing, dear. Get as much rest as you can while you’re here.”

 

“Of course, Mrs. P, the top three longest sleeps of my life have all been inside this house,” I grinned as she laughed and Elio and I sat down opposite her.

 

“Any plans, boys? I’m afraid there isn’t much to do up here in the winter, but you can take the car into town.” Samuel smiled fondly and poured coffee in favour of alcohol considering my recent awakening. I glanced at Elio and quirked an eyebrow for his opinion.

 

“We could drive into town, maybe the shops have reopened since Christmas. See the old spots.”

 

“That’d be great.” I smiled widely because I knew and Elio knew and the Perlmans knew this was what I said on the first morning, last time.

 

We spoke of everything and nothing over lunch, what new books had I read? What had I thought about this film? I remembered and realised how much I had loved and missed just _talking_ to Samuel. The correspondence we had kept over the years was formal because it had been written in letters or concerned something or other about work. The time I had seen him in person at the conference, I was so preoccupied with what I thought _he thought_ of me for breaking his son’s heart I hadn’t truly appreciated his conversation. I didn’t have this kind of camaraderie with my colleagues at Columbia, at least not since Professor Meunier had retired. Perhaps I’d call her and find out if she was close enough to visit, but perhaps she had sailed somewhere warmer for winter.

 

After lunch was done, I helped Mafalda with the dishes as we spoke about the salami. I told her it was perfect for cooking, but perhaps she wanted to add some more sage and rosemary for a good fragrance in another batch to compliment the depth of flavour, it would be good served on its own as a starter.

 

When we were finished, the house was quiet and I assumed everyone was taking a nap. It was the usual even in the summer, but the cold made one especially partial to cozying under the covers. I walked quietly around the house, ran my fingers across the pieces of furniture that were so familiar.

 

The door to the study was ajar, and I meant only to peer inside for a look at the familiar bookshelves, but found Samuel smoking a cigarette and scribbling in a notepad as if he had been waiting for me. He exhaled a stream of smoke as he looked up.

 

“Everyone else has taken their siesta.” He said, tossing the notepad on top of a pile of books he had on the side table next to the squishy couch.

 

“Mmm, don’t think it would be good for my back considering my small death last night.” He chuckled and patted the couch cushions as instruction to sit. When I did, he didn’t say anything in particular but studied my face. He had done the same, perhaps more briefly and inconspicuously, at the conference and it had made me feel exposed, but now I was oddly okay with his examination.

 

“I’m so happy that you two have each other in New York. It relieved me to see you appear here yesterday. I’m glad you have someone to lean on, too.” He smiled at me and I looked down into my lap. 

 

“I do. I can’t tell you how thankful I am that you nudged Elio towards Columbia, Pro.” He laughed and patted my hand.

 

“Perhaps not one of my most stealthy plans, but it is the most fruitful. I’d ask you to call me Samuel but ‘Pro’ is nice in a sentimental way, yes?” I smiled widely. He had admitted it just like that.

 

“Has Elio told you much?” There was no need for skirting around with Samuel, and I wanted to know where we stood. He shrugged and gestured vaguely.

 

“You know him, he hasn’t said much but I could tell. I asked him generally if he’d seen you in New York and he got all flustered, ‘once or twice’ he said.” I chuckled. 

 

“He’d been restless since he arrived. I guessed it was either something between you or _about_ you. I’m glad you came when you did, or else he might either have exploded or flown back to New York, himself.” I frowned at that. His parents had wanted to see him for so long and he was too worried about me to enjoy it.

 

“Is it your family?” He asked. I shrugged because it was easier than saying ‘yes’ out loud.

 

“Bad?” I shrugged again.

 

“You can probably guess.” I said. He exhaled through his nose as he stubbed out his cigarette.

 

“I know it’s no replacement, but you know you have a family here, yes? No matter what happens between you and Elio.” We both knew there was no chance of either of us leaving the other anymore, but the acceptance embedded in that sentence grounded me.

 

“Thank you.” He patted my arm again.

 

“Do you remember that conversation we had about _traviamento_?” I nodded. 

 

“If we hadn’t had that conversation then, I don’t think I would have suggested Columbia to Elio.” I looked at him now, couldn’t see where this was going.

 

“When I saw you at the conference in Providence, you weren’t the same. Dimmed. Not even enough of a spark to assume your _cauboi_ persona.” He raised an eyebrow: obviously, he saw through me the entire time. “You said sometimes the _traviamento_ turns out to be the right way. Perhaps Elio is your _traviamento_.”

 

I cleared my throat loudly and my eyes were glued to a whorl in the the woodgrain of the floorboards. 

 

“I’ve thought a lot about all the different turns and forks in the road, Pro. But it’s beginning to feel like my first twenty four years were the _traviamento_ instead.” When I thought the lump in my throat had been choked down enough and finally found the courage to look up, I found that Samuel’s eyes were glassy with tears and the lump returned. It felt intrusive to be seeing his sad smile because it seemed to not only to be for me, but for his own untravelled paths as well.

 

“I wish I had learnt to think like you sooner.” That shattered me and suddenly I saw him in an entirely new light. He had been right, that summer, I did see him only as a figure. We sat on the couch now in the same moment in time, but behind him stretched the complicated rivers and paths that made up his own life, and there was probably more heartache than I would ever know. We shared a quiet solidarity for a while, not professor and student and not as men of different generations but two individuals who shared in a universal truth.

 

“Pro, I was wondering if you might have a way of getting in touch with Professor Meunier.” He gave an ‘aha!’ and sprang up to his desk to leaf through his Rolodex.

 

 

When I left the study, to my own surprise, I thought of my mother. Life was life, everyone had one, but we dealt with it in so many ways. Perhaps I could not see how deep Samuel’s feelings really ran and whether or not he was in great pain. But he seemed to have made peace with it, perhaps it affected him from time to time like just now. On the other hand, Frances’ anger began to make more sense. Her pain was spun into anger and was external, directed at the paths themselves rather than herself for not having taken them. Perhaps it was easier that way and I could no longer blame her.

 

I found Elio lying down on the bed on top of the covers, his shoes still on. I laid down beside him, his back to my chest.

 

“You’re here.” He mumbled.

 

“I’m here.” I smiled as he snuggled in closer. “Do you still want to take that drive?”

 

“Sure,” he said this but made no indication of getting up anytime soon. I chuckled and closed my eyes, and ended up falling asleep too.

 

When everyone woke it was too early for dinner but too late to do much before and so we decided we would all go into town instead.

 

“Mafalda, you’ve been cooking all these big meals, non-stop for a week, please rest!” Annella insisted, and at first Mafalda tried to counter that she was fine to cook but in the end conceded and said ‘finally, I’m appreciated’. 

 

Samuel drove with Annella in the front seat and Elio and I sat in the back. It was so simple a thing but the moment would be imprinted on my heart forever because it felt like we were a family, and I supposed we were.

 

The restaurant in the piazzetta had upgraded since I had been there last, and in the winter they had set up a small pavilion with outdoor heaters burning small fires in front of the establishment proper. We ate joyously and I proposed the plan that Samuel and I had made earlier that day.

 

“Elio, you remember I mentioned Professor Meunier?” He was devouring gelato despite the cold, and it reminded me that I should perhaps tap into my baking skills more often to pander to his sweet tooth. He made a brief sound of acknowledgement around his spoon.

 

“She’s sailed down to Rome for the winter holidays and has invited all of us to visit her for a few days to celebrate the new year.” At the mention of Rome, Elio’s  eyes filled with anticipation and desire and he smirked around his spoon. There was never a question of yes or no.

 

 

We cruised back in the car after dinner with the radio and as was unsurprising for this time of the year, the selection was dismal but we enjoyed it all the same, singing loudly. We meandered upstairs and the Perlmans went to bed. Elio, in a good mood, tugged at my shirt and kissed me, pushing my back against the sliver of wall between what had been mine and his room years before. His lips tasted sweet like vanilla and just a touch bitter from the dark cocoa and tobacco. Under the cover of darkness and the influence of alcohol,just enough oblivion, it felt like a brief encore of our night before.

 

“I have an idea.” I said against his lips. Unhurriedly, Elio sucked at my neck for a long while, intending to leave a bruise. Some weeks ago, he complained that he wasn’t allowed to do so anymore because of my teaching, and I had promised as a compromise to let him paint my neck red and purple during the holidays.

 

“Go on,” he whispered it against the now surely bruised spot and I was stunned for a moment at the very agreeable sensation of his breath and the faintest of vibrations of his voice against the wet spot on my neck.

 

“Let’s go for a _gita_.” He pulled back and grinned. 

 

“I thought you’d never ever ask me.” 

 

 

Barely twenty minutes later we snuck out of the house, wrapped in sweaters and scarves and carrying with us a flask of hastily made hot chocolate and extra blankets. The snow had started to melt and we were in that ‘grey and damp’ stage of the winter, still cold but mercifully less so.

 

Manning the motorboat was like riding a bike, and I remembered more than I had thought. I drove out so that we were not so far from the shore to make this dangerous but far enough that when we looked back the houses appeared smaller than the size of my palm. I turned the motor off and joined Elio in the back, cozying under the blankets and leaning back to bask in the moonlight. With the roar of the motorboat gone, I could hear the water lap against the boat. For a while, we enjoyed the quiet. There was something different about being out on the boat. We were sandwiched between the sky and the sea, and in the night we wouldn’t have known which was which if it wasn’t for the moon’s guidance. We were just us, floating out in the middle of boundlessness, momentarily unattached from our past and future and able to see it from afar and yet so close up because the vastness of the sea encouraged introspection.

 

“I used to watch you and Chiara go out on the rowboat.” Elio said softly. It was so quiet around us there was no need to speak loudly, and it only added to the moment.

 

“Were you jealous?”

 

“In a way. Yes, and no. I wanted it to be me, but I don’t think I would have said yes, then, even if you’d asked me.”

 

“And why not?” He didn’t reply but the soft rustle of fabric told me he had shrugged.

 

“Were you trying to make me jealous?”

 

“I don’t know. Subconsciously, perhaps.”

 

“I think what I was jealous of was how fast you made it happen. Like you’d jumped off the plane, and the moment your foot touched Italian soil the spirit of Casanova possessed you.” I laughed at that, because I would never have thought of myself in that way and it was endearing that he would think it at all. “I’m serious, I could never have done that, to be so brave and bold.”

 

I scoffed lightly. Brave and bold. Even in my one chance to really say what I thought about my mother I had not been able to say it because I was afraid. I had pretended I was fine for weeks and when it finally rolled around, I had broken down hysterically. It was so peaceful I almost told Elio everything right there.

 

“Where’s Marzia now?” I finally asked.

 

“I’m not sure. Paris, maybe, for the holidays. The last time I saw her was in Rome. She’s working as a translator, mostly freelance so she can travel. There’s a poet who calls on her every time he’s in Paris or Rome to use her.” The way he had said ‘every’ and ‘Rome’ flagged up in my mind, and I realised I hadn’t thought to ask about who he had been with during the five years. It didn’t make a difference, now that we were together, and I had assumed it was as casual as my dalliances had been.

 

“ _Use_ her?” I asked. Elio didn’t reply for a while, but I could feel his energy change to that of muted annoyance.

 

“Marco Charron. She started translating for him basically for free when she was still in university, sort of as a side job. She’s dazzled, still. He’s got this off-colour kind of aura about him.” I smiled at his protectiveness.

 

“You sound jealous,” I teased.

 

“She stayed with me in Rome the summer between my first and second year. He swooped in during the last few weeks and she was entirely gone. The second time, before I went to New York she stayed with me for a while before a new job in Naples. He was in town for a weekend, she went off, when she came back she couldn’t stop talking about him.” 

 

“I suppose there are just some people you can’t shake off, and you’re entwined forever,” I said. “Were you together?”

 

Elio huffed a smile.

 

“It was just like that summer. Friends first, convenient and temporary lovers second. So perhaps I have no business being jealous of the poet.” 

 

I laughed and turned my head to see him wincing an embarrassed smile and shaking his head at himself.

 

“Were you with anyone seriously in Rome?” I asked. Elio shrugged.

 

“I don’t know about serious. There was a boy. And then a girl. Marzia. A boy. Marzia again.” He mused, and the look in his eye was faraway as he ran through his memories. I didn’t know how to explain it, but how we were sitting and the moonlight and the stillness of the water, how contented we were: I was just glad to hear it from him. Perhaps there was a tug at my heart, but I was happy he had those experiences. 

 

“It was kind of experimental. Like trying on different clothes. I liked them, and I cared, but I was also… _testing_. Perhaps it was cruel.” 

 

We were quiet again for a while, thinking alone but side by side.

 

“You know what I meant to tell you at dinner yesterday?” I hummed a noise for him to go on.

 

“I took you to Monet’s berm that day…all those years ago,” he paused, and it was like we were both playing the montage of our memories from that day. I wondered what his looked like.

 

“I took you because that was the one place that was mine. I wanted to see if you fit. You did.” Under the covers, I sought his hand and his fingers twined with mine. “And yesterday at dinner, I just thought… You belonged _everywhere_. Eating with my family, playing with my cousins. It was like you had been here all along.”

 

I turned my head to look at him, to find he was already looking at me. I swore to myself, I was going to remember this forever. If one day my memory was going, I would write and describe this moment to myself every day. When I died, I wanted Elio to be there holding my hand and when I closed my eyes for the last time to see this image of his long neck elongated and turned, his curls falling in just the right way, the look in his eyes, the sky the colour of squid ink tinged with blue behind him and the sensation of feeling microscopic laying in the middle of the sea but with the simultaneous feeling of vastness and infinity— the sea inside my soul. It was as calm as the sea around me. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ahh!! The conversation about traviamento is one of my favourite parts of the book, it's towards the front of part 2, do read it again! Can Luca film something like the boat scene for the next film because I can't get it out of my head. And Oliver really never did take Elio out on the boat(s)!! We had that scene in the film with the dredging but it's Not The Same. Also I know I'm all over the place picking and choosing from the book and the film, in this case I've written Crema because I don't like writing 'B.'. Crema is inland and so thats why there's no midnight gita etc. in the film, but I thought their relationship with the water in the book is so special so!! 
> 
> Thank you so much for all your love, readership and comments I love having every one of you on this journey with me!! All my love xx


	16. Us, Rocks, and Water

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is written from Elio's perspective! I thought it was more appropriate for the moment, and important to see Oliver through Elio's eyes for this. The writing is perhaps not so different, it is still me writing after all, but I hope it comes across differently to Oliver's voice.
> 
> Read on!!

At breakfast, I watched as Mafalda poured Oliver his coffee with a fond hand on his shoulder and sliced the top off of his egg like she used to do. Her thin hands were leathery but strong, bony but not brittle, and the backs of her hands were embroidered with a collection of freckles, sun spots and protruding green veins. I wanted to prod at them, just to see how they would move under her patterned skin, and then kiss her fingers because seeing these hands that used to wash me in the bath when I was a child age: it was beautiful but depressed me severely, too.

 

I watched Oliver down all of his meal, chewing and biting and drinking, his eyes darting around the display of food on the table. He was greedy, really, scavenging for the next thing as he dined on another; it mirrored the way he grabbed at my body as he was kissing my lips, the way he slurped over my cock and pinched my nipples at the same time, the way he fisted my hair as he drove into me again and again and again.

 

“Let’s take the drive today.” He announced. Dad rustled his newspaper and made his lips-turned-down approval face.

 

Before we left, Oliver went back upstairs to change into something warmer and the phone rang.

 

“ _Pronto_?”

 

“Hello, I’m Joshua Steinem calling for Oliver? Is this the Perlmans?”

 

“Josh! It’s Elio.” He laughed his sitcom-laugh-track laugh.

 

“Elio! Man, it’s good to hear your voice! I know it was your birthday, happy twenty third! When you get back we’ll have to have dinner to make up for it. Oh, and I know you guys won’t be back yet but Wanda’s throwing a new year’s ‘do together for everyone at work, and she asked me to invite you! Crazy, that one,” we made genuine conversation until Oliver came back down and I passed him the phone. There was a split second, microscopic flicker of a startled expression, like when people are woken up from a nap suddenly. I went in the living room to give him some privacy.

 

“God, Josh…” was all I heard, but I didn’t intend to eavesdrop anyway. The call meant there had been some premeditation and planning to his departure from the States, he’d managed to ask Josh to call and give him updates. Not knowing what had happened to him itched my skin, but what scared me more was the possibility he would never tell me at all. Was it because he felt like he could not tell people things, or because he could not tell _me_ things? I tried to love him every way I could, hold him and kiss him more than usual and hope that it did something to heal the wounds I couldn’t see. I had thought that he would have told me what happened last night on the _gita_ , it had been such a beautiful moment and I would never forget it. Being in the boat with him was so surreal; what was left of seventeen year old me erupted and would not be ignored and was the sole cause of my racing heart and what lit my desire to own him last night.

 

“Let’s go,” His voice was clipped ever so slightly but he exhaled a quick smile. he said this in the doorway of the living room and turned for the front door before I even got up. That was answer enough for now.

 

I sat shotgun with him driving and we were quiet until we made it out of the area of villas, but unlike our easy companionship these past days, I felt uneasy and wanted to fill the silence. Perhaps I was just imagining it, and it was a projection of my anxieties but I could not shake the feeling.

 

“Perhaps we could go to the berm on the way back.” Oliver finally said something, and when I turned to look at him he was smiling serenely and I was stunned for a second. Perhaps it really had been all me making it up.

 

“Maybe, but I was thinking…”

 

“In the summer?” I grinned, then. He’d read my mind. Perhaps he did really want to go back right now, but I wanted to return to our spot on a day that was exactly as hot, sunny and pungent as I remembered it. Memory is an unreliable creature, maybe it had not been as idyllic as I remembered, but I wanted it to be _cinematic_.

 

We arrived in town almost too easily with the car; it was a shame that it was not summer, or at the very least dry enough to ride our bikes on the soil paths. We parked in the middle of the square, right next to the Battle of Piave memorial. There were not many people, and so I leaned quickly over to give Oliver a kiss as he was undoing his seat belt.

 

“Why?” He smiled fondly, probably thinking that I was just eager.

 

“We won’t be able to kiss outside, and I wished that you would have, that day.” He smiled a tender half-smile, in memory of the moment that started it all and the time we had wasted.

 

The monument was wet and there were puddles at the bottom, a few patches of grey, sludgy melt. We got out of the car, and without discussing it we walked around it separately before arriving in the middle on the other side just like we had then. When I arrived, he was smiling wide and he was looking at me but through the filter of the memory of that day, his hand pinched the front of my sweater, pulling me in closer ever so slightly, but it was all we could do.

 

“I wish you would have smiled at me like this. That day.” 

 

“You caught me off guard so badly.”

 

“How come?” He gave me a look. His ‘it’s just like you not to know’ look.

 

“Because you didn’t just open the gates. You burned them down.” The glint in his eyes was like he was figuring out how he was going to eat me. “It took all my self control.”

 

“You refused when I touched you,” we started walking to the _tabaccheria._

 

“It was the right thing to do, then. If it makes you feel any better,” he turned and smirked at me. “I felt the ghost of your hand on my cock for days.”

 

And then he turned into the shop to buy his cigarettes.

 

 

At lunch, we ate outside on the piazzetta again and he chatted animatedly about being back. I was there with him, every moment, but also removed in a way— I had almost numbed myself to the town and the house and the shore. I had had to work to undo and redefine all these places after he left. It was nice now to remember, but in a way it was also never the same. The years and my feelings had compounded, and even as we tried to near it, Oliver and I would never have the same experience of Crema. It had only ever been the same and could have been the same during those six weeks.

 

It was past two, and he was leaning back in his chair smoking as I ate my _semifreddo_. He had his sunglasses on the table, choosing instead to close his eyes and face the sun like he was trying to tan his eyelids.

 

“I love you.” He said suddenly. He meant it for me, but his tone was so soft and unplaceable I wasn’t sure if he was speaking to me, the sun, Crema or earth itself. Like it was a truth of the universe.

 

 

On the drive back we opened the windows and let the cold air stream through. The sun had finally come out to grace us, and it was giving us just a touch of that summer. Dad was in his study as always and mom was in the kitchen chatting away with a friend who had come through town on the way to Nice. We were tasked with packing our things for the trip, but we did so slowly because even though we had just as many memories and places to visit in Rome, home would always be special.

 

“Should you pack billowy or should I?” Oliver was leaning over his duffel which was open on our bed and he glanced sidelong at me with a smirk.

 

“Returning gifts isn’t polite,” he said, and so I folded it and put it my case. 

 

“You didn’t notice, but I took one of your sweaters from home with me.”  


“Did you?” He stalked over to look. It was the dark, muted navy sweater he had been wearing a few days before I left. It had been due to be washed, but I had salvaged it. He held the side of my face and the other hand came up to wrap my neck, his thumb applying the slightest, most delightful pressure at the hollow.

 

“Will you wear billowy when we go out on New Year’s eve?” I watched as he processed what I was asking him: I wanted to remember him as he had arrived in Crema and I wanted to fix the night Allegra had ripped the button off.

 

He slipped his tongue in my mouth as answer, and I pulled his hips into mine. There was something so delicious about kissing and fucking in the daylight. We had the shutters thrown open wide despite the cold, letting it stream through and it hit the bed just so. 

 

Oliver shoved his duffel roughly out of the way and got on top of me on the bed, and I savoured every sound our lips made as they met, sucked and came apart, the sound as he kissed and sucked at my neck, my own gasp and hiss as he bit my skin. I was hard and ready to burst at the slightest touch: utterly useless and waiting to be manipulated. I pushed him off of me on to his side, shoved down my jeans and opened my legs wide. 

 

“I need you inside me,” I said desperately, and Oliver groaned against the side of my neck, worked lube over his cock without even pulling his bottoms all the way down and then he was pressing against me and sank straight in because my body wanted his cock as badly as I did.

 

We were a chorus of grunts and moans, me begging and begging and him giving and giving, and grinning at me because he couldn’t believe how easy I was for him. Oliver pressed the slightest brush of lips against the left of my neck and his long fingers splayed from under my ear to my collarbone on my right. Maybe it was the tingle of the sun and the draught whispering over my skin but when he started stroking my cock as well I wanted to sob.

 

“Yes, yes, yes,” Oliver was murmuring and egging me on, and I didn’t know what kind of nonsense was coming out of my mouth at this point but I came with a cry of absolute agony because I could not believe that I could experience such a thing just by virtue of my body and his.

 

I swiped my fingers across my abdomen and put them into Oliver’s mouth as he kept rutting into me. I almost came a second time and he came with a strangled groan muffled around my fingers. He was still for a moment and then bobbed his head around my fingers like he was imagining they were my cock.

 

“Good, huh?” He said. I could only keep panting in reply.

 

 

The night passed with everyone in the house buzzing about Rome. I was buzzing for more than one reason. My parents had visited me in Rome throughout my university years and we made beautiful memories mirroring those of my childhood— like when we visited the Sistine Chapel for the first time: I had been small enough to sit on my dad’s shoulders to look up.

 

“That’s one of man’s greatest creations, Ellie-belly.” He had cooed. When they visited me for the first time in Rome one month into the term, we had visited the Sistine again and we stayed for an hour discussing Michelangelo— now I knew _why_ it had moved me so, then.

 

But that was the Rome I knew with them— not my Rome, not the narrative of me, creating and becoming an adult Elio that neither my parents nor Oliver knew. Yet. The thought of showing Oliver this me, Rome-Elio, university-Elio, adult-Elio, experimental-Elio thrilled me inexplicably. 

 

We were catching an early-morning train the next morning and so all retired to bed at nine after one more performance by me: Bizet for my mother and Ravel for my father.

 

Oliver and I held each other for a long while before really falling asleep. I was thinking of Rome, all the places I wanted to show him and what they made me think of: I would see the human statue of Dante pop up all over the city; maybe it wasn’t the same man all the time, but every time I saw Dante I was sure to give him ten thousand lire. I pressed a kiss with my fingers to the base of the Pasquino every time I was in the vicinity. There was a pizzeria three streets north-east of the _Fontana di Trevi_ which was tucked away from the tourist hubbub, they made the best _pizza con patate_ and I made it a habit to have at least one date there with every person I was interested in. Perhaps it was in poor taste to have a default date, but the experience became a ruler to measure with and a controlled environment in which to get to know a new lover.

 

I woke in the middle of the night cold, and rolled over to curl up on Oliver’s reliably warm side but he wasn’t there. I checked my watch— it was close to two in the morning. There was no question as to where he was: the last of the places and the most special to Oliver for him to revisit was his rock on the shore. I debated whether or not to seek him out. I wanted to be with him and comfort him if he was upset but perhaps he needed his time. We had not mentioned her so explicitly, but there was no doubt that Vimini was on his mind.I had understood their relationship but yet not at all. Their relationship with each other had endeared me to both of them even more, the way they had connected was astonishing and warmed me. I felt like I could approach the reason for their closeness but never be able to truly grasp it. There was something there that I would never be able to give him. When you lost someone who was that special and with whom you shared such a singular relationship, who could comfort you but that person themselves? 

 

If he was thinking about his mother and what he had to face when he returned, there was even more reason for hesitation. We had spent the entire day together or with my parents and he hadn’t had the time to think about whatever Josh had told him on the phone and I thought I should give him space— trying to grasp Oliver when he was in his feelings was like trying to swat a fly: they would feel the air move and flit away.

 

When he used to go out to the rocks he was thinking about me and his imminent return to Columbia. In New York, he’d taken me to Riverside when I found him in his office. I found him there again, seething, when he was thinking about Marc. I hypothesised based on all these different times that there was at most forty percent chance he would ask me to leave, and so decided to brave the probability, wrap myself up in his blue sweater and my big coat and find him.

 

I could already see him from the gate: he was sitting with his arms clasped in front of his knees, looking out to the sea. I watched him for a while and he was so still it was like time had stopped, and then his shoulders went up, and he looked down at the rock on the exhale, sighing. Gingerly, I made my way down. He turned his head a fraction, he could hear me coming, but didn’t move. I sat down next to him tentatively like that time in the summer.

 

“She would be fifteen now,” my heart felt as if it had been pierced by a shard of ice at his tone. I placed a tentative hand on his thigh and he pulled me in to lean on his chest, his arms wound around me and he rested his chin on my head. In return I wrapped my arms around his right knee. The way his hands gripped my arm broke me even more, there was something desperate but faraway like he was clinging on so he would not be dragged into oblivion.

 

“She wrote to me every day. Every single day.” I could feel his heart kick in his chest against the back of my left shoulder and it took everything in me not to cry. I was supposed to be comforting him, but he was hurting so much, I didn’t even know how much there was or how deep it went, and I was crying out of helplessness.

 

“Then one day she stopped writing. And I knew. I just knew. I’ve kept all her letters.” The tears won, and spilled over. At least with how he was holding me, he wouldn’t know unless and until they turned to sobs.

 

“Where did they bury her?”

 

“With her grandparents.” My voice was thick and choked even to my own ears.

 

“They should have scattered her in the sea. Then she could have seen everywhere she’d ever read about.” His chest heaved twice and his fingers dug a bit more into my arm. I closed my eyes, praying _please, please, please_. Please God let me stop crying and let me hear him out.

 

“Her last letter was three pages long, she talked about her new pet, an orange budgie. She named it Cléo, for the Varda film. Then right at the end she wrote ‘my parents will probably have to take her back, soon. I’m going to the hospital again tomorrow’. And when she signed her _name_ , it was ‘from my heart, forever and always’.” He started sobbing out loud, gripping me to his chest with the most gut-wrenching sounds of pure hurt. _Forever and always_. She had already known. Her last letter to me she had asked me to enclose a postcard of the _Fontana dei Quattro Fiumi_ with my reply, and I had but I never knew if she had seen it because the next week I got the call that she was gone.

 

I don’t know how long we cried, but eventually Oliver had subsided to intermittent sniffs and I to hiccups.

 

“Do you ever wish that you hadn’t grown up so fast? Be so precocious,” he asked me. I cleared my throat loudly, though I was sure it would be hoarse nevertheless, and then it finally occurred to me clear as day what it was that had put the little Italian girl and the New England pre-Socratics doctorate student together like a magnetic force

 

“I don’t know that I did.” I replied. “Books and knowledge… being a professor’s son. It’s not the same as it was for Vimini. Or you.”

 

He held still, and his grip on me loosened ever so slightly and became stiff. My heart was racing— had I spoken too soon or too directly, was this the moment he would pull away again?

 

“I had a brother,” he finally said. “James.”

 

My heart froze and turned to glass as my mind raced to process _‘had’._

 

“Your middle name is James,” I remembered it from the first time I saw his application when it was unassuming, just one in a stack of six.

 

“Yeah, after him.”

 

My heart shattered into a million pieces.

 

“What happened?”

 

“He got pneumonia at three and I was only five months old when he passed. I didn’t know until I was eighteen. I was doing college applications, we were fighting about my major and Frances said ‘ _James_ would have gone to medical school’.” The way he said it was so numb and I don’t know if it scared me more than if he had started yelling or crying.

 

“You know, all my life I couldn’t understand why she wasn’t hearing me and made me do so many things I didn’t want to do. Everyone’s parents are like that, on some level, so I thought Frances was just more intense. But when she finally couldn’t help it and spit it out… she had never listened because she was talking to a _ghost_ all along." He exhaled through his nose.

 

"I didn’t speak to her for a week and stayed with Bubba. She paid for my applications. I started working at the restaurant to pay her back. Then I stayed on to pay for college. I didn’t want anything to do with my parents anymore, and it wasn't Bubba's job to take me in." He paused, and I couldn't tell what he was thinking. 

 

"I’ve never said this to anyone. The summer before college I told Bubba I was doing okay at home, and I told my parents I was staying with Bubba. They weren’t speaking because of me. I rented out a room with these poor college kids in Yonkers, they got me my first fake I.D.” 

 

He huffed a laugh, and I was pulled out of my rapture with his story, and released my face from a frown I didn’t know I had been frowning. How had he gone through all that and tell it like it was nothing? How did he make it through all of that alive, still standing? How did he see anything good or admirable in me when he had gone through so much and my biggest problem the first seventeen years of my life had been rationing pocket money so I could buy _books_?

 

“We’d walk past Empire Casino all the time because they went to Sarah Lawrence. We went in one day and I was good. Really good. I was good at reading people, but I’m not so sure about my poker face anymore— you always seem to see right through me.” He laughed then, and for a second I didn’t know if I was allowed to. I never imagined the moment he told me all this to be like this, but when did I ever know where Oliver was going to take me? I could only smile and held him tighter, and he finally leaned back so he could turn his face and look at me. 

 

His eyes were swollen, and he had a tired smile on but the look in his eyes shocked me most. He was my Oliver, but not at all. He was all the Olivers he had been in one, and put together they had lived more experience, more heartache, more perseverance and more strength than I ever would. He pressed his lips to mine, my bottom lip nestled between his, a warm palm on my wind burnt cheek.

 

“Just listen,” he whispered against my lips, and draped my legs over his thighs and brought my head to his shoulder.

 

“Mom didn’t want to see me, and we basically didn’t speak all through college, but she’d call first day of Hanukkah to make sure I’d lit my menorah. Bubba fought for me to be at the gatherings. I didn’t want to go, but I had to, for her. She’s been fighting for me the whole time.”

 

“I’m glad she was there for you.” I finally said. He gave a tender smile.

 

“I probably wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for her.” He said it so casually, as nonchalant as if someone asked him when he was going to have dinner. I wanted to shake him and scream for even saying it, and I must have looked as much because he chuckled, gave me a smile and held my cheek like I was being silly.

 

“There might be versions of us out there where none of that had to happen. Maybe James didn’t die, maybe my father wasn’t such a jackass, maybe Frances reacted differently. I don’t know. It doesn’t matter, because in this one I got to meet you.” The mirth that had been on his face before and that I didn’t understand changed to one of infinite, painful tenderness.

 

“Do you know why I fell in love with you?” My heart skipped a beat, and I couldn’t believe what I was thinking, myself. My first thought was that it was like a scene from a supermarket erotic novel, when the blonde god-like hero tells the beautiful waif-like damsel that her delicate demeanour inspired such feelings of protection and love for her.

 

“Why?”

 

“Because you present yourself to the world so unabashedly. By words, or your body language, that lovely blush you wore when you caught me staring. Everything shows on your face, and you can never stop yourself from saying what you’re really thinking. _You’re_ brave and bold, always. You think you aren’t but that’s what being brave really means, isn’t it? Being vulnerable and honest and authentic. Otherwise it would be arrogance.”

 

“But I do love to brag.” He laughed and wrapped me to his chest. I pressed a kiss there. He was okay. He hugged me like this when he was happy and he liked something I did but couldn’t or didn’t want to describe what it had been.

 

“You went head first with _everything_ about your emotions, like you just had to know what it would be like, what it would feel like. With Marzia, with me. You were unabashed and shared your thoughts with me about everything like you were a child Vimini’s age. When I was seventeen I had already learned to sit and shut the fuck up.” He trembled, then. “It’s why I love you, and it’s why I loved her.”

 

“You made me feel young. And the thing is, I had never felt like that anyway.” I felt like throwing up for how much I wanted to take the pain away from him. I pushed closer into him, my face buried into his shoulder kissing the side of his neck and him to mine. I could feel his tears drop on my collar bone. He let go and tugged at me so that I was looking at him. His cheeks were tear stained and his hair was a mess, now, from the wind but there was a hardened look of resolve in his eyes.

 

“I wish I could take the pain from you.” He laughed loudly, freely, and it was the same as when he had arrived on my birthday racing just ahead of the sunset.

 

“Goose. You already have.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oliver's first two lines concerning Vimini are taken directly from the book, I've kept them the same because they are so powerful and gut-punched my soul the first time I read them. I thought a long time about how to handle this part, and I hope you think I did them justice. Let me know what you think!!
> 
> I will be pausing my daily updates for a short, short period to finish coursework (ah, responsibilities!), see y'all in about a week. Thank you all for all your support, I appreciate all of your kudos and comments so much You've been amazing. Later! (ha)
> 
> All my love xx


	17. On An Evening in Roma

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello my lovelies, I am back!! Love you all for bearing with me, here we are in lovely Roma! We have returned to Oliver's perspective! Title comes from Dean Martin's song. 
> 
> Read on xx

When I woke up, Elio was in my arms and drooling on my bare shoulder, but I was grinning still. I felt deliriously happy like I could  _run_  all the way to Rome, because for the first time in my life I felt like I had no secrets and no dead weight.

I had not told anyone about Vimini and had gone through the mourning alone. Save for the one letter Elio wrote to me bearing the news and my reply, I had not spoken about her to anyone else. I couldn’t bear to look at the postcard from Elio’s room, but I kept the entire sheaf of Vimini’s letters in my desk. Once in a while, I would remember a conversation we had and then find her letters. Her penmanship was lovely, swirling and neat as anything but she always wrote on blank paper and the lines of script were always just a little crooked: it reminded one that she was only an eleven year old girl, after all. On some of my sleepless nights I would remember her, and sometimes I’d envision her sitting with me on the rocks at Riverside.

Somewhere in the middle of writing my book one summer before, I was sitting by the water after a late night of editing and laughed as I came to the realisation that Vimini was the Phoebe to my Holden. I couldn’t predict if she would enjoy the comparison. And I wished she could still be here just for me to write to, even just to metaphorically thwack me over the head.  _Don’t ever tell anybody anything. If you do you start missing everybody._  I had subscribed to that for a long time, but telling Elio everything last night had been good. More than good. He had always seemed to know about me anyway, he could see through why the way I was, but saying it out loud was different. No one had ever known so much about me, no one knew me in as many ways as him.

“Elio, wake up,” I shook him in my arms and he gave a confused groan.

“What,” his lips were mashed against me and he was smearing the drool all over.

“We have a train to catch.” I chided and pushed to sit us up. He curled himself around my shoulders.

“Kiss me,” he asked, eyes still closed and hair a veritable nest. “Please.”

“Only because you’re so polite,” I kissed him and he immediately sprang up to the bathroom. An act. I gave him a fond eye roll and he grinned back at me.

“I wouldn’t miss Rome with you for the world.” The way his eyes lit up was reminiscent of the way Bradley’s sons would drag anyone who would listen into their game and describe their make-believe characters and rules. Rome was that for us: it had been an even more surreal tangent off of our already stolen traviamento. But now, it was more than that and for Elio, Rome was where he had become an individual and I couldn’t wait for him to show me who that was.

We were squashed into the car with Anchise driving the four of us to the train station, Elio and I sitting in the back with Annella and Samuel in the front.

“You’ll love Fernande. She argues like your sisters,” Annella made a disapproving noise and reached to tug on his ear. Of course, though, he wasn’t wrong.

Professor Meunier’s eccentricity was offset by her always clean-cut appearance. She always kept her hair short and practical, and her ash brown hair had faded gracefully into grey and now, a stark white. She wore large, thick framed black glasses because they made her eyes bigger and she loved that the men in the department could not look her in the eye as a result. Her office had been plastered with posters and memorabilia of  _La Nouvelle Vague_ , and when she left she gifted her poster of  _Bay of Angels_  to me with a knowing look. She retired early at sixty three when her partner, Danielle, recovered from breast cancer after a four year battle. They declared that life was too short to spend somewhere as grey as New York, picked up, and now spent the rest of forever in the riviera.

“I’ve known her for so long, Oliver, I couldn’t be more pleased we’re all getting together like this. When we were both new to academia, oh, she was something! She still is, of course, but Fernande Meunier at twenty eight stepping all over the toes of men young and old who thought they knew better. Ha!” We could only laugh at Samuel’s fond enthusiasm.

Since we all sat together on the train ride, Elio and I could not say much at first but he gave me one of his smiles as we walked down the aisle between the seats, and that was enough. Eventually, Samuel and Annella dozed off: his head slumped on her shoulder and hers rested just on top of his. It made me think what Elio and I would look like when we got to their age. Elio’s pointer curled around my ring finger.

“I can’t wait.”

“Me, too.”

“I want to kiss you in front of the Pasquino again. No matter where we end up on New Year’s eve, I want us to go.”

“And if you throw up again?” I teased. He shot me a look but then shrugged.

“I suppose it’ll have to be a tradition.”

Fernande had promised to meet us at the station, and I couldn’t wait to see her. The last time she had been back in New York was near a year ago, now. When we made it off the train and into the terminal, there was that automatic kicking of the heart and burst of adrenaline at knowing someone was already there to find you.

“Sammy,  _ici!_  Oliver!” Her loud teacher’s voice soared over the crowd of people and we saw her and Danielle standing right by the barriers waving a blue scarf. I had only met Danielle once, last time when they had been visiting, and had been mesmerised. She was from the Côte d’Ivoire, and though not extremely tall, the way she held and dressed herself made her seem Amazonian: the kind of beauty that had one arrested in her gaze, and when she smiled it radiated from her soul.

We made our way over and Fernande and Samuel hugged, and each introduced their families to the other. It had probably been at least five years since they had spoken in person and not by phone or mail.

“Oliver, my Claude Mann,  _ça va?_ I miss you so!” She kissed my cheeks and I laughed and did the same.

“Don’t forget me, now, mon beau.” Danielle smiled and hugged me close.

“Come, come, Gianni was already annoyed when I dug him up from his hole this morning. He promised to drive, but what a rascal! He’ll get bored and drive off,” Fernande started her easy rambling and recounted her and Danielle’s morning getting the local boy whose mother owed her a favour to drive them into Rome from Fiumicino, where they had parked their boat.

“She’s amazing,” Elio had whispered to me at one point during the car ride. We had piled into Gianni’s white van after a chorus of ‘buongiorno’s and Fernande continued to chatter away from her spot in the front seat, her voice filling the car.

“ _Signora_ , it’s too early. Please, keep it down.” He said. It was already about to turn noon but from the look of him it was likely he had arrived home from a night out when the sun had already started shining.

Fernande and Danielle’s boat was gigantic and white like one would see in the movies and during the winter, away from the riviera, it looked entirely out of place in Fiumicino. It was spotless except for the name  _Cléo_  written in ox-blood red paint on the dark blue hull: like Vimini, Varda’s heroine held great significance for Danielle.

As we piled out of the car, picked up our luggage and made our way to the boat, Elio touched the back of my arm and I gave him a sad smile.

“I know.”

Though already large on the outside, as an individual who was rarely inside of a houseboat, I was still surprised to find how spacious it was.

“Gianni, you will return at six in the evening to drive us back to the city. Don’t give me that look, it was not my idea for you to return from a rave at four in the morning!” Chastised, Gianni gave the universal shrug and sour expression that came natural to teenagers through puberty and stalked off again.  We were herded inside and immediately served white wine and  _spaghetti alle vongole_.

“I must tell you all, Oliver was the only one in our department who had any idea what a good wine was. Every Christmas for the others a forty dollar bottle of proseco and they were none the wiser, but  _this_  one has a sharp tongue.” I raised my glass to her.

“I miss you, Fernande. Things are so drab and stale, nowadays.” She laughed and threw her head back diabolically. A flair for drama, she loved to make entrances, exits and hear all the gossip: it delighted her when there was good news but she savoured the bad all the more.

“Oh, of course, mon cher. Where would they be without me, the great Fair-nun Moony.” She put on her thickest New York accent for the way everyone used to butcher her name. Everyone laughed but there was a different kind of understanding between the French speakers.

“Now, Elio, Elio. No, keep eating, please,” she paused and waved her hands over the table as Elio looked up with fork in mid-air, his eyes wide but delighted as he took in the whirlwind Meunier experience. “Your father has told me stories about you since you were born! And now to find you have enchanted and twirled around your  _petit doigt_  my dear Oliver as well, that’s two of the dozen honourable men I know! We must get to know you, too.”

Elio laughed and threw a glance at me: I hadn’t told him or anyone that Fernande knew about us, but what I loved about present company was that they took everything in stride and moved on. They talked back and forth about school, about music, then she conducted her litmus test and asked his opinion on Chabrol’s  _Les Bonnes Femmes_ : you failed if you spoke about it as a great comedy or said you wished all girls were more like Jacqueline and passed if you lamented Rita’s caged situation or the glass ceiling on Ginette’s dreams. There were varying degrees of passibility: when we used to have department parties she would murmur ‘B minus’ or another grade to me as she went through all students. But for Elio, of course, flying colours.

“ _Mon Dieu!_  Elio, my great young man, look at you compared to that slug Gianni!” Samuel and Annella spared a smile of pity for the other boy but could not have looked more proud of their son.

“Now, we must talk festivities.”

We would have dinner in the city together tonight, tomorrow Fernande and Danielle would see the sights with the Perlmans, and in a very adult manner that made me feel like a teenager: they all knew, in an unspoken way, to let the young lovers be.

At dinner, we were joined by a couple Dario and Vanda, they were old friends of Danielle’s and they were the hosts of tomorrow’s New Year’s party. They owned the bar and it was no wonder, they were both tanned and slim, him exuding just enough Italian machismo in black leather and her a soft, sensual glamour in an ankle-length, slinky fur coat.

After dinner, we walked to the  _Piazza Navona_ , and as always Rome was still buzzing with people at night. All kinds of different music blared out from the bars, and vendors were still selling food into the night. It was a far cry from the serene nightlife of Crema, and there was something about Rome in both winter or summer that moved one in the blood and bones to join in a collective, undulating haze of sex and romance. We walked in pairs, Elio and I lagging at the back.

“Let’s go now,” he said close to my ear. I looked down to find him staring up at me with that face I loved andthat excited me every single time. He was biting the very edge of the inside of his lip, and there was that daring desire in his eyes that sparked when he could envision one of his cinematic, perfect moments that was close to happening, anyway, but that he needed to direct to make sure it was executed exactly how he imagined.

“I thought you wanted to go on New Year’s eve,” I was only playing because under the influence of a good Italian wine and more than twelve hours having not kissed him I would have done anything he wanted.

“I change my mind,” he shrugged simply. “I want to be sober this time and remember everything with complete clarity.”

I grinned and shook my head at him but walked further in front to excuse ourselves from the adults, and was waved off quickly with no hesitation.

“Go! Be in love!  _La dolce vita_  is for the young, my friend!” Dario waved us off pressing kisses to his fingers and throwing them into the air.

It was a short walk to the Pasquino from the Piazza, but we slipped through alleyways and between buildings to extend the experience. We emerged into the patch of light that shone on the statue and Elio walked up to it like he was approaching a shy deer. He ran his fingers across the base from right to left while looking up at it and when he stopped at the other side he finally looked at me.

There was an exquisite wonder in his eyes, his mouth just a little open and he blinked slowly. I walked closer just inside the edge of the circle of light opposite him and smiled, waiting for him to speak.

“I can’t… you’re really here. We’re really here.” I nodded and I tried to imagine him passing this very spot throughout his four years, coming here to remember and relive us every time. I didn’t know how he did it without combusting or breaking down, but I guess it spoke to how differently our relationship had affected each of us.

“I’d come here every time I was nearby and alone and feel the walls. One time I even left a love letter on the wall among all the anonymous complaints.” He laughed, remembering. “It was there for two weeks before anyone noticed and then someone had written over it in red.”

He looked at me now, grinning and I stayed where I was, giving him time to commit everything to memory and allow him the perfect tableau.

“Come here,” he finally whispered and I did as told, one deliberate step at a time. He took me by the arms and pressed me to the wall. His hands smoothed their way up my shoulders to my neck and then his thumbs rubbed over my cheeks as if to _truly_ mark out where my head was in this snapshot. Elio made his teasing way, glacially, to my lips: his mouth open in anticipation and tongue beginning to peak out until finally our lips met.

We kept our eyes open until the very last moment and then they shut blissfully and I could feel his lips curve into a smile against mine as he realised he was really kissing me again in the exact spot we had thrown caution to the wind. We had been too happy and in love to have let anything break our perfect dream sequence before, and finally, we were back together: in the same state of happiness, but this time? For the rest of forever.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bay of Angels is a film about two gamblers haha, and Claude Mann is the lead actor. Prof. Meunier is my new favourite, but then I say that about every new female character I write ha! 
> 
> Thank you for reading and all your love!! I appreciate your comments and feedback so much, and I do reply to everyone! All my love xx


	18. Fontana di Trevi

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> More of them being cute because why not!! Read on! xx
> 
> There's a [song](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TYpatobsfjM) called exactly this by Achille Togliani and its just Romantic, haha.

When we woke in the morning it was too late for breakfast and too early for lunch, and all that was left of the small hotel’s breakfast display was some bread and Nutella. Of course, this was really all Elio needed. The one remaining staff member at the desk told us we had free reign to finish what was left, and that the Perlmans had left a few hours ago.

 

Elio was smiling at me as he slathered his bread with chocolate, was still smiling as he poured us coffee and sipped it, and still smiling as he watched me bite into the sandwich I had made. I could only smirk because I already knew the reason why he was being cute and I was just as happy, in no place to rib on him about it.

 

“Sometimes I think I don’t need to cook. Look at you, so happy with just bread and spread,” he laughed and I leaned across to wipe the smear of chocolate on his cheek.

 

“I may have a simpler palate, but you can educate me, hmm?” He teased as he sucked a finger into his mouth and licked it clean.

 

“So, what are you showing me today?” I asked. Otherwise, I would have dragged him back upstairs and we would not leave the room again until the party tonight. He had a mischievous glint in his eye that I couldn’t place and it excited me.

 

“The _Fontana di Trevi_.” He said. I squinted at him, trying to see where he was taking it.

 

“Anyone who’s been in Rome has been to the Trevi.”

 

“But you haven’t been with me.”

 

“Are we going to toss coins into the water in the name of our love?”

 

“Would that be so bad,” he gave me a mock pout and I relented, I'd go anywhere he wanted.

 

We set off in much lighter clothing than we had expected. It was much warmer in Rome than up north and with the sun out there was an extra spring in our step. We decided to walk even though we were staying in Trastevere, taking our time around the area and then walking up along the Tiber into the city centre was part of the charm.

 

Perhaps I simply didn’t notice it yesterday, but today Elio was walking and holding himself just slightly differently. He had his sunglasses on, his curls parted and pushed to one side nonchalantly and his chin was tilted just ever so slightly upward as he smoked his first Camel Gold of the day. This was different to how he even behaved around friends in New York— what I was seeing was a glimpse into that first burst of naive, innocent, rodomontade as he negotiated how maleness factored into his new individuality away from home. Or perhaps it was simply the confidence of one who had worked to get to know a city like the back of one's hand, one who had their bearings all in their head and did not need to rely on street signs or maps. He finally caught me staring.

 

“What?”

 

“Nothing,”

 

“Come on, _sputalo il rospo_.” He crushed the cigarette under his boot and that was what did it.

 

“You’re different in Rome.” He gave a shrug but his smile told me he knew what I was talking about.

 

“Elaborate.”

 

“You’ve got this… swagger. _Molto_ s _educente_.” I said and he grinned and bit his lip at me.

 

“I'm going to give it to you, tonight.” He said and popped an eyebrow at me and I was thoroughly smitten. Who was this creature and why had they not appeared before now? This side of him came out whenever he took me, which more often than not he wanted to do it with me on all fours: when he took the lead he did so with carnal passion and instinct. But to see the domineering, rascally, brazen Elio in the daylight doing this dance before his usual stellar performance in bed was something else.

 

“I’d walk down these streets and imagine you with me. What would you be thinking, which restaurant would catch your attention.” He mused, and my usual Elio was back.

 

“Which ones did you guess, then?”

 

“It would change as time went on. I started with imagining the you from that summer, but how did I know if you were still that version of Oliver anymore? You could have become anyone and you could have walked into any of them.” I held his fingers briefly as comfort. 

 

We walked and chattered about nothing for a while, and as the density of tourists got higher I knew we were approaching the fountain.

 

“Okay, I have a confession,” Elio blurted it as if I had been trying to get it out of him. I grinned in anticipation of whatever information he was about to volunteer.

 

“Pray tell,” I gestured.

 

“I would take every person I was interested in here on first dates, and—” I couldn’t hear what else he said because I was laughing so hard.

 

“What an idea! Of course you’d do something like this,” he was pawing at my arm, begging me to stop laughing at him and I took my sunglasses off to enjoy the moment.

 

“Of course? Why, of course?” He asked when I finally took it down to a grin rather than the laugh that had people looking around and whispering ‘ _Americano_ ’ or something to that effect in their native languages.

 

“It’s like the berm, isn’t it? You take people here to see if they fit.” He smirked and looked away. I was right. “Go on then, show me you moves.”

 

Finally, we emerged from a narrow street onto the square in front of the fountain, and even though I had seen it before there was something about the magnificence of the water cascading down and Baroque sculpture in general that captured one’s attention every single time.

 

“At this point I’d start working interesting facts into the conversation,” Elio said as we walked with the crowd to shuffle towards the edge of the fountain.

 

“Oh?” 

 

“It was designed by Nicola Salvi and completed by Pietro Bracci, but Pope Urban VIII wanted Bernini to make it more dramatic. That renovation was abandoned, but there are touches of him still in the design.” He pointed and I followed his fingers. “Look how the horses seem like they’re bursting out of the rock itself, or the drapery on Abundance: they’re oozing with movement and tension. It’s characteristic of him.”

 

When I turned to look back at him, he took off his sunglasses deliberately and there was a look in his eye that seemed to say ‘but _you’re_ the most beautiful thing here’.

 

“Who’s the Casanova now, hmm?” I punched him in the arm and shuffled closer to the edge, but I had to admit if it had been a first date and I didn’t know him as well as I did, yet, it would have been unbearably charming. 

 

At the edge of the fountain, Elio appeared next to me with his palm up, a thousand lire coin in hand. The gleam of fun and mischief in his eye combined with the sound of the gushing water made me feel as though this was some momentous decision that was disguised as an inconsequential arbitrary leap of faith, and I would think of this moment somewhere down the line and realise this was the point where it had all changed.

 

“Do you believe in wishes?” He asked, then pressed the coin to his lips and passed it to me. "To us."

 

I kissed it on the other side and then threw it over my shoulder, as the legend dictated. Then, he grinned at me, took my hand and we snaked through the crowd and down a lane that curved around the right and to the back of the fountain. In comparison to the gaggle of tourists just now, the lane was quiet and romantic and I started shaking my head to myself. Elio  _was a genius_.

 

“This is how you do it.” He grinned coyly and let go of my hand as a woman started approaching.

 

“Do what?” He asked innocently.

 

“The fountain, the people, an ordinary event but you make it special, ‘see the world from my eyes’. The big moment before the coin toss and then you take them by the hand down this lane. Suddenly it’s just the two of you like you’re on an adventure, and they think about kissing you.”

 

“Oh, you put in that last part. Are _you_ thinking of kissing _moi?_ ” He leaned in closer, his shoulder pressed to mine and looking up expectantly. Just as the woman passed his side, I leaned in for a quick peck, and no one was the wiser. Elio was grinning like he had won the lotto.

 

“You’re right. Here, I’d start asking if they believed in love, or in hope, then depending on the kind of person I’d bring in _La Dolce Vita_ , maybe sing a bit from _Three Coins in the Fountain_. Maybe quote Achille Togliani. _La speranza tu infondi a chi crede nell'amor._ ” I laughed, and could not even look him in the face. 

 

“Too cheesy? Too much? Bit vulgar?” He was doing that thing where he was hanging on to my arm like a puppy.

 

“No, I just can’t believe that you’d thought and planned all of it, and that it _worked_.” He grinned and bit his lip.

 

“But is it working on _you_?”

 

I paused. Was I going to give this flirty punk version of Elio the satisfaction?

 

“I suppose.”

 

He laughed, jumped up and quite literally punched a triumphant fist in the air.

 

Around the corner, we arrived at a small pizzeria. They were selling everything _al taglio_ for on the go, but the street was calm and quiet and the two tables they had outside were just casual enough to suit something like a first date. He sat me at one of the tables and went inside to order, returning with two large slices of _pizza con patate_.

 

“Huh, I’ve never seen that before.” I remarked and Elio laughed loudly as he sat down. Unlike most variations, the pizzeria had shredded the potato instead of slicing and sprinkled it over the tomato sauce like cheese, allowing it to gratinate beautifully.

 

“Everyone says that, too.” His eyes were shining and I laughed with him because he was so excited. As I bit into the pizza I remarked on how perfectly hot and crisp it was and the look in Elio’s eyes told me I had just fulfilled another of his scenes, that he had imagined it all before.

 

“How many people have you brought here? In total?” He shrugged and looked down at his pizza innocently.

 

“Probably about twenty.” I was taken aback for a moment but I supposed that was just how things went in university. Considering my track record, I was hardly in any place to judge.

 

“Did it work on all of them?” He smiled and shrugged.

 

“No. I met a girl studying opera in the music department and she was very unamused the entire time, she hated tourists and said _Three Coins in a Fountain_ and Frank Sinatra were overrated.” He lamented, and squinted as if he was still trying to figure out how to crack her.

 

“Was it girls more often?” He thought about it and took a bite of the pizza.

 

“I don’t know. I suppose it was about equal. I didn’t really think about it,” he shrugged and smiled. “The first time I created this date was with this boy Nicola, a violinist. He looked like Sal Mineo but with your hair colour.” 

 

I smiled but avoided his eyes. I had been with men _and_ women after I broke up with Marilyn, but never on more than one proper date. I had told myself that I didn’t, couldn't, mind whatever Elio told me about his exploits, and at the end of the day I didn’t. Despite all that, it was still a smidge awkward for me to hear about the first man he had dated after me.

 

“Ask me why I broke up with him.” There was a resolve in his eyes. I gave him a wry smile, but humoured him anyway.

 

“Why?”

 

“I usually wake up second but three months in, I woke up early one day and he was on his side with his back to me and I thought it was you. I reached out to touch, he rolled over and… that was it. I could have cried.” He said all of this matter of factly and then returned to his pizza. I had had the same thing: every person I slept with, I’d wake up in the morning and recover from the haze of hormones and feel like I had tainted something- my memories with Elio.

 

“Do you think everything would have happened the same way if I was a girl?” He asked. And I smiled, gave him a casual shrug, but it was something I had thought too.

 

“I don’t know. It was never about the fact that you were male, but who’s to tell?” I replied. “What if we’d met here instead while you were at university?”

 

He grinned, then.

 

“We’ll find out tonight.” 

 

When he suggested I wear Billowy on New Year’s eve, I had supposed it was about sentimentality but now I knew: he wanted to ‘meet’ me officially as this adult Elio, map who I had been that summer onto Rome and meet me as this grown, experienced Elio.

 

 

The rest of the day we visited the café that had been his favourite to study in, then the Borghese Museum. It was my favourite part of the day, just seeing the sculptures and paintings with him and chattering back and forth. As was customary, I paid my respects to _Apollo and Daphne_ and we continued our appreciation of Bernini enthusiastically. 

 

In the galleries, I asked Elio to stand in front of _Boy with A Basket of Fruit_ for just a second because he had always reminded me of the painting.

 

“You’re just flirting, now,” he laughed modestly, but oh, how wrong he was. Perhaps it was not that he looked exactly the same as the Boy but with his cherubic features, perfect skin and how he looked as if he was overflowing with youth... I heard a woman murmur behind me to her husband of Elio’s resemblance, too.

 

“Oh, but Caravaggio had to have had his muses. And you would have been one of them.” I pointed to the basket and smirked. “He even has a peach.”

 

Elio burst out laughing and we were met with a wave of unsavoury glances and tuts, and so made our way quickly through and out to the grounds. The garden surrounding the museum proper was quite bare in the winter but kept its magical air of a time passed, nevertheless. We kissed for a while in the shade against the back of a Baroque rotunda, with no one to witness us but the statue that stood in the middle. 

 

“I want to kiss you against every wall in the city,” he was whispering and I would remember forever the way his lashes fanned on his cheeks as he stared at my lips.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for all the love!! Hope you are enjoying, and let me know your thoughts! I appreciate all your kudos and comments so much! All my love xx
> 
> As a side note, the pizza thing is entirely real! I ate pizza like that for the first and last time in Rome around the Trevi fountain and I don't remember how we found that shop but it was tiny and perfect and if anyone in Rome knows what I'm talking about that'd be crazy!! Maybe this chapter is really just a cry for help, please find my pizza con patate LMAO


	19. 1989

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whoooo it's The Big Party™!! Read on xxx
> 
> Small playlist of songs mentioned:  
> [Ma Baker](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2k-QqbQ7CmI) by Boney M  
> [That's Life](https://youtu.be/sj43E1KIOf4?t=1m8s) by Frank Sinatra  
> [Flames of Love](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YrLTBJj26gs) by Fancy

We returned to the hotel at seven to get ready for the party and leave at nine. We showered together for the better part of an hour, kissing under the warm spray for what seemed like forever.

 

“Do you remember what we did last time?” Elio asked, but his hands were already grabbing fistfuls of my ass like he was Shylock come to take his collateral.

 

“Of course,” I gasped against his temple as his finger slipped into me. Sadistically, he fisted my cock as well and just as it was getting good he released me and got out, but as he was drying himself off, he was half hard and trying to avoid touching himself, too.

 

He buttoned me into Billowy and rolled up the sleeves to protect the remaining button from any foreseeable damage. He left it half open and placed his hand on my sternum, the tips of his fingers fingering my Star of David, then looked up in my eyes and walked backwards to take me in.

 

I did a turn to be funny, but I was equally enticed as he was dressed in a delicious black silk shirt that, for now, still hung open and unbuttoned to reveal his smooth, pale torso.

 

“Perfect,” he whispered and kissed me again.

 

“Do everything like you would if I wasn’t here,” I said as I buttoned his shirt in return, and there was a wicked burning in his eyes. “Just kiss me at midnight and we’re not sleeping tonight until we’ve each fucked the other once.”

 

 

We were smoking just outside the hotel, and I was staring at Elio as his cheeks hollowed out around his inhale. I could imagine them hollowing for another reason, could feel the phantom pressure of his finger against my ass, and my state of arousal was not helped by any measure by his devil-may-care demeanour. He was dressed in a brown, rough leather jacket that fit him like a glove and it folded in the front teasingly to _almost_ shield the sliver of chest and glint of gold of his Star from view. He looked so nonchalant and unaware of his effect, what he exuded—or rather that he was aware but he was not doing it on purpose, and I wondered how many people he had captivated and driven to such lust and madness in our lost years. Sure, he had said twenty dates but how many countless, nameless people did he lock lips with in the clubs? How many people had he let slip their hands in his pants and fist his cock like I wanted to do right now? How many people had he rubbed up against as he devoured them like he did to me just barely an hour before in the shower?

 

“What?” He asked, and I could hardly speak considering the lewdness of my thoughts and for the way the hotel lights accentuated the cliff of his cheekbone and his lust-darkened eyes.

 

“Just can’t wait to be fucked,” I said and he laughed exuberantly because when was the last time that that was our biggest problem?

 

Samuel and Annella arrived outside, his arm wrapped possessively around her waist. Each were clad in their glamorous best, Samuel sharp in a sleek, black Armani ensemble and Annella wrapped in a velour dress that clung to her shoulders under her fur shawl like it was just about to fall off.

 

“Boys,” Samuel nodded and then we flagged a taxi for the bar. We spoke about our day, they had been to Hadrian’s Villa, and from the way Samuel and Annella were looking at each other, their glances dripping and lingering on the other, I could tell they had the Rome fever, too.

 

Dario and Vanda’s bar was tucked a few streets behind the Spanish Steps and was almost unassuming: the entrance was around the back of one of the usual orange coloured, sandy looking buildings. It was a large, sleek black door with a gold knocker and what looked like a letter box slot. Samuel knocked on the door loudly three times, and the flap of the letter box opened for a swift second before a bouncer opened the door, clipboard in hand.

 

“Your name?”

 

“Perlman? Party of four?” The bouncer nodded and waved us in, and we proceeded confusedly. The little foyer we had walked into connected to the bar by a long hallway that was lit by an Art Nouveau fringe-style chandelier, and through another heavy, sleek black door was the incredible bar proper. It was much larger than it seemed: it was made up of at least three buildings blocked out and connected on the inside to form the deep room filled with tables and chairs, mirrors and stools, and the shiny, black, dance floor. It was an indescribable mix of vintage and modern: the wood panelling and Art Nouveau style chairs and glass ornaments on each table glittered in the dim light recalling the _Belle Époque_ , the bar with its Art Deco mirrors looked as if it had been pulled out of a New York speakeasy, and next to it there was a jazz band whose members were taking a break while what I was sure was Boney M played overhead.

 

And I had yet to speak of how the space was filled with beautiful people of all ages dressed to the nines in skimpy outfits and big coats. Some were dressed like they had been living here since 1910, some were dressed timeless and modern, and some so avant-garde they were from a time and space not yet known to man. I was reeling with the sensory overload: everything and everyone was beautiful and perfect and my heart wanted to beat for all of them at once. We were making our way through trying to find Fernande, when I felt Elio lean closer into my side and slip a hand down my back pocket to pinch me briefly.

 

“Do you remember what they called you at the book party?”

 

“What?” He was saying it nonchalantly but his hand had now found its way out of my pocket and was grazing the seam of my ass.

 

“A _dissoluto_ , only sweeter.” He grinned. “I’m not so sure about sweet anymore.”

 

“Hmm, taste me later to make sure,” I chuckled breathlessly at that and slipped my hand into one of his front pockets just to let my fingers linger on his thigh.

 

We found Fernande and Danielle standing with a loose group of individuals, all dressed eclectically in shades of burgundy and scarlet and black, and textures of fur, sequins, silk, velvet and leather. Perhaps it was just my general state of arousal, the Rome fever, or my _dissoluto_ nature but what a feast for the eyes and senses it was.

 

“Annella, look at you, _quelle déese, j’adore ta robe!_ ” Someone handed me a glass of whisky and we were caught up in a whirlwind of greetings and kisses as Fernande introduced her crowd. There was a film studies professor from Paris who had come all the way because ‘what a chance it is to catch Fernande while she’s on land!’, a woman who was dressed in a gold sequinned dress who was speaking German to another man dressed in green with stark blue eyes rimmed in kohl, and finally a girl who could either have been Elio’s age or older than me because of an unplaceable quality in her eyes and the way the lights shifted on her strawberry blonde hair.

 

“And boys, this is Ada,” as soon as Fernande said that, both Elio and I gasped and realised she was one of the daughters of the poet from the book party. Ada lagged by a moment but then she blinked and exclaimed her surprise.

 

“Oh, my dear, the boys from the party! Where have the years gone, especially you— Elio? Elio, you were like a freshly plucked blade of grass, then, so green!” She laughed and touched his arm, but the way it lingered showed her pleasant surprise at how much better looking he had gotten.

 

Ada was working around Europe with a PR company and was only in Rome for another two days, so she probably shouldn’t drink too much or stay too late, nevertheless she had been sipping enthusiastically at her drink the entire time we had been catching up. As she drank, she loosened up and that slow, lazy rhythm that overtakes people as they become tipsy possessed her and she was giving Elio a look that I envied but also did not want to disrupt, instead I wanted to watch it bloom.

 

Elio himself had switched his finished whisky for a gin and tonic, and his eyes were shiny as he watched Ada speak. There was a different body language to him now— gone was the excitement of a green boy who was experiencing everything for the first time. Instead there was a man, one who was no longer swept up by the current of the pool of desire, latching on to what holds he could— he was a man who was in control of the ebb and flow of lust and tension, just as much as everyone else. He, who was aware now that if he just said his next three words right Ada would fall straight into his arms.

 

The jazz band started playing again and everyone gathered to the central space, drinks still in hand and moving with the music. Out of nowhere, trumpeters and trombonists seemed to materialise out of the walls and moved around the perimeter playing with the jazz ensemble. It was jazz they were playing, but everyone moved in their own way, displaying how the collective rhythm and atmosphere of joy and hope and love translated for them as an individual. I spun the German speaking woman by the hand and danced with the man with the kohl-lined eyes, and he twirled me, instead. Elio was dancing to himself next to Ada, and then he was laughing and dancing with a red haired woman in a black Edwardian gown. We danced and danced with everyone who was willing, holding hands, brushing shoulders and hips, twirling and laughing.

 

After a while, I couldn’t tell how long, the upbeat dance music melted away and they started playing Sinatra’s _That’s Life_ , and everyone stopped their dancing and exclaimed their love for the song, one that everyone knew no matter their mother tongue— the entire bar knew the words and sang together, and we were all connected in so many ways to this universal sentiment that had so many names— _é la vita, c'est la vie, that’s life_. I felt so purely _human_ : all of us in the room led such different walks of life and we had experienced heartache and failure but here we all were converging, living such a sublime and perfect moment. I found Elio’s eyes on me just as everyone was shouting the final lyrics at the tops of their lungs and I could have cried because everything in my life had been worth it if it led me to this: to feeling on top of the world and surrounded by more than a hundred people who lived and breathed art and poetry and who were feeling the ecstasy of life with me.

 

The bar burst into cheers and claps at the end of the song and as the band retired for another reprieve, pop music resumed. Some people shuffled to take a break at the tables and others stayed on. _Flames of Love_ started playing overhead, and I was about to move to get closer to Elio but Danielle intercepted me.

 

“Come on, darling, let’s dance,” she said, and in her shimmering dark blue dress and gold eye makeup, I felt as if I was speaking to the reincarnation of Nefertiti herself. She held me close and we enjoyed the feeling of surrender to the song, to the instinct of one body moving with another. Months with Elio had allowed me to forget what it felt like to be against the body of a woman, and it was like tapping into someone who was, in a way, no longer me. Danielle had a hand against my chest and the other on my waist, looking up at me, and I was getting lost in the warmth of her deep brown eyes and the sensation of infinitum that synth pop inspired. _Flames of Love_ had been playing everywhere since it had come out earlier in the year, but I still couldn’t get enough of it. Over her shoulder, I saw Elio’s arms snake over the back of Ada’s white, fitted, A-line mod dress and as he moved to whisper something in her ear we made eye contact and it truly felt like we were meeting for the first time— two strangers wrapped up in the arms of others but so pulled by the other’s gaze that there could no longer be any other set of arms and eyes and lips that mattered anymore.

 

I kissed Danielle on her neck after she kissed my cheek just as the song was ending.

 

“Thank you, _mon beau_ ,” and patted my back to send me off, there was no doubt she could feel that I was raring to be in Elio’s arms.

 

The music was melting into another song as I started making my way over, and Elio was trying to pass a drunk Ada to the kohl-eyed German. Dario stood on top of the bar calling for everyone’s attention— it was surreal because he had his gigantic black coat around his shoulders and his shirt was half unbuttoned.

 

“Everyone, everyone, it’s almost midnight! It’s almost midnight! We have thirty seconds!” He was holding, of all things, a pocket watch and I almost could have laughed for how much he looked like a vampire but I needed to be next to Elio, in his arms, holding his face as we turned into the new year.

 

Across the sea of people, from my height, I could see him wading his way over among others who were also trying to do the same.

 

“Fifteen seconds!” Dario yelled, his hands waving frantically, and now Vanda had joined him on the bar and was holding his waist.

 

“Ten, nine, eight!”

 

I grasped Elio’s hand over the heads of other people and pulled him to me, holding his back and waist, his hand held my right cheek and the other was wrapped in the gold chain around my neck, ready to pull me to his lips. His eyes were shining with drink and happiness and love, and for a moment the giggling and laughing and shouting around us melted away and all I could think of was that this was just the beginning of my many more new years to come with this man— we would not only enter 1989 together but the next decade, then the next millennium and who knows how many more years after that? As many as we could get.

 

“Five, four!” Everyone around us was shouting and counting down in their own language.

 

“I love you.” Elio said breathlessly.

 

“Three, two! _One!_ ”

 

“Forever and always.”

 

The bar erupted in cheers and whoops and shouts, but all I would remember from that moment was the warmth of his body, the familiar yet exciting sensation of us pressed head to toe together, his hand on the back of my neck, his tongue that slipped smoothly against mine but we kept breaking apart because we were both fighting grins.

 

“Welcome to 1989,” Elio breathed against me. 

 

“What a welcome. I’m so happy to be here. With _you_.” The look in his eye was of wonderment and tenderness, because it felt like we could take on the earth. 

 

“Happy new year, my lovers! Let us enjoy the night, it is young!” Dario shouted over the noise.

 

Murmurs in the crowd passed as people started to speak of wanting to go outside to see the fireworks around the city. More and more people agreed, and Elio and I shrugged, held hands and followed the movement of the crowd. We spilled onto the streets, and the sky above us was no longer black but glowing with white, pink, purple. There had been fireworks over the river, but people had been setting them off in the piazza as well, and everyone was drunk lingering on the steps, and the entirety of Rome was one big party. Strangers took notice of our big group and we started to lose people because they were getting sidetracked in other conversations or invited to some other activity: the closest friend of any drunk man was another equally drunk man.

 

A woman and her friend shouted at us from afar, asking us to come and dance and go home with them.

 

“Would you go?” I asked, smirking. Elio was clinging to me, almost tucked under my arm and one more drink he would have been trying to burrow into my armpit.

 

“No, I’m only dancing.” It made no sense but I knew what he meant, and he grabbed the front of my shirt, pulling it down.

 

“Why am I always drunker than you?” He twittered, but at least he was not as far gone as that night he had come back from his night out with friends. “I swear, if I ask for another drink don’t give it to me because I still need to be sober enough to fuck you good.”

 

I laughed because a group of young Italians who had just been passing by did a double take and started whispering about whether they had really heard what they thought they had heard.

 

Finally, as a group, we made it to the riverside and joined the large crowd already gathered there. The main fireworks were in their final phase but there were other individuals in their boats still setting them off, and there were two new explosions every minute. I was looking around, taking our surroundings all in and when I looked down again, Elio had taken to holding the two open zippers of my jacket and was leaning back with a loved up, dreamy expression.

 

“Did you know you’re really cute when you look around all amazed like that?” He was slurring just a bit and I could only grin because did _he_ know how adorable he was right now?

 

“Do you like me like that?” I asked, and I meant did he like me being all touristy, but as Elio was wont to do even when sober, he scrunched up his face and mocked biting me with a loud chomp of his teeth.

 

“Oh, I like it a lot. You know what else I like?” His hands slipped from holding my jacket to inside of it and then down to my ass. I was sure I heard someone wolf whistle in the distance. I couldn’t explain what I was feeling because I was highly amused and endeared, as always, by how impossibly transparent Elio got when drunk and yet I was hungry for how horny he was, but also I wanted to kneel at his feet and let him eat me alive.

 

“Let’s go back,” I said lowly and he bit his lip, leaned back so much I thought he was going to fall and then twirled around and started running towards the bridge that would take us back to Trastevere. I ran after him, and he was laughing and looking back and only ran faster when he saw I was catching up.

 

I finally caught him as we were crossing the bridge, and I wrapped him up in my arms as I crashed into him, and we half-ran, half-danced deliriously back to the hotel. Trastevere was already much quieter than the other side of the river, people were celebrating but on the roofs, and we ducked into someone’s doorway to sneak in a kiss. Perhaps it was the alcohol, the excitement of the night, the desire, but it felt like I was kissing so many different versions of Elio at once. His hunger and excitement was like how he used to kiss, when every chance was still a wonder and like he wanted to learn everything he could about the act. But there was also something so much more assured, he had kissed many more mouths and knew what he was doing, but there was also the way that _we_ kissed— the only way _we_ could kiss because we were so familiar and yet so new, we were going deeper into territories we had already, but only _barely_ , explored.

 

“Come on,” he let go of me abruptly and took me by the hand again back to the hotel. The attendants pretended not to notice that we were drunk and raring to be naked with each other, and when we burst into the darkness of the room, Elio seized me again and was tugging my pants down.

 

“Keep it on,” he said as I was unbuttoning my shirt. He had pulled all of his clothes roughly off his body like he was angry at them and now lay on the bed on top of the covers, and was lewdly stroking himself as he watched me do away with the rest of my clothes. The moonlight, or firework light rather, was streaming in from the balcony’s French windows and I wished I could have filmed him at that moment, staring at me and feeding off of my nakedness to pleasure himself. 

 

I got on the bed and was going to go down on him as I usually did but Elio tugged at my limbs until I was laying half on my side, half on my front licking up his cock as he fisted mine roughly with his left hand.

 

“God, _fuck_ , yes,” I gasped around him at how he was saying the words: he usually swore in bed, anyway, but now it was low and loud and came from the base of his throat and he was so in control— he was the auteur, the conductor, the master.

 

I slurped and moaned around him as I knew he liked, and he kept swearing while his right hand gripped my hair how _I_ liked it.

 

“Fuck it, come here,” he said this but pushed me off of him roughly, releasing my hair and I was too stunned by him to do anything but lay back and watch as he kneeled on the bed and applied lube to his already dripping cock. He leaned down, an arm supporting him right next to my head and the other still stroking himself. 

 

“Ready?” His eyes were dark and crazed— was this what he looked like all the time? Had I just not noticed because he always wanted to do it from behind?

 

Without another word, he pushed into me and I let out the loudest groan of agony because the ache I had felt the entire night since the shower was finally satisfied by the stretch and pressure of his cock inside of me all in one go.

 

“Oh, fuck, _Oliver_ ,” I moaned, and he was driving into me now, no stop of his hips at any point, his rhythm fluid and languid and he was supporting himself on his elbows, instead, so that he could be as deep as possible.

 

He pulled back and held my legs open, watching himself thrust in and out of me, mouth open. He kept his grip on my right thigh, it was almost painful how hard he was digging in, but then he fisted my cock with his wet hand and I did not know any longer what was coming out of my mouth or how loud I was being. I couldn’t tell how long I lasted then, between the relentless thrusts, the fine line between pain and pleasure and the way he was staring as if to threaten me to orgasm— it felt like it could have been forever, and when I came I was positive I screamed. 

 

Elio came on my chest and abdomen and then laid down on top of me, his face inches from mine. He gripped my chin and his fingers were sticky from lube, his come, my spit, my come, his spit. He kissed me and then bit down on my bottom lip and let it find its own way out from between his teeth as he pulled back.

 

“You’re mine.” He said, and I could feel the rasp and scrape of his voice vibrate against the beat of my heart.

 

“Yours.”

  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let me know what you thought!! Thank you for all the love and kudos and comments, I appreciate every single one!! All my love xx
> 
>  
> 
> *  
> Elio's line 'I'm only dancing' is a reference to [John, I'm Only Dancing](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SqEXcQ0f2E0) by David Bowie about being in a relationship with a man, but still enjoying dancing with and being attracted to women. A bi icon.
> 
> Shylock is the creepy dude from Merchant of Venice who wants a pound of Antonio's flesh.......yep.


	20. Romantica

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Our last Rome chapter, from Elio's POV!! Title comes from Dalida's [song](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jfANn2WhNBg), the lyrics are pretty interesting! Unfortunately, she passed away in 1987, hence Danielle's mourning.

My eyelids were fighting me because they wanted to open, and I did not have the strength. I felt stuck to the bed, and my throat was so dry it hurt to swallow my own spit. I couldn’t decide if it was worse, now, that I had not been so drunk that I _hadn’t_ immediately passed out, or that I was now sober but could feel the exact consequences of deciding to mix wine, whisky and gin.

 

Oliver was still asleep. As always he slept much more conservatively than I did, one forearm primly by his head and the other laying over mine. He had to let his feet hang off the side ever so slightly because he was too big for the hotel bed. I groaned as I got up, but hopefully not loud enough to wake him. I downed two glasses of water and relieved myself, and as I washed my hands in the sink I caught sight of the mess of fluids all over my abdomen and I thought I might never wash it off.

 

My back ached from the too-soft mattress and the come down from the alcohol, but it was too late to go back to sleep now. I could see the horizon starting to get just a little lighter: the sun would be up in a few hours. I searched through Oliver’s bag to find his ever-present stash and rolled myself a small one. He wouldn’t mind, and if he woke up we’d share it.

 

There were things that I had thought and felt last night that I hoped would go away come sobriety, but deep down I knew they were permanent. At least, they’d stay for a long time. They had been there, sitting right at the bottom of my stomach, since October, but being in New York helped to forget them. Now, in Rome, it was harder to keep doing so. 

 

The duvet rustled as Oliver got up, and I turned from where I was sitting in the chair by the window. His skin was much paler now in the winter than the tan he liked to keep in the summer, and it was like he had removed his armour. It was a colouring closer to my own, and I wondered if it made me feel any closer to him, or what if I had sought him out earlier in the year, when he was still a warm golden? I supposed it was better now that he looked different than when we met, as a marker that this was a different time, a different Oliver and a different me. He was smiling lazily at me and scooted closer to the edge of the bed to kiss my shoulder and take the reefer.

 

“Cheeky,” his voice was thick with sleep but wrapped his mirth just so, and the vibrato would have made me hard had I not been thinking what I was thinking. On his exhale he blew some of it playfully at me before slipping the joint back between my lips. This was something he loved doing, he was the only one who had ever done it, and every time he returned a smoke to me this way there was a look in his eye that was a mix of tenderness and desire that made my heart pound.

 

He wrapped his arms around my shoulders from behind and pressed his lips into my hair.

 

“Come back to bed,” he said lowly. I did as told, because even when we were at home and he was being affectionate, he was never like this. This was behaviour more likely to come from me. I got back in bed and sat between his legs, using his body as a lounger.

 

“Lire for your thoughts?” He asked. The sun hadn’t even risen yet and he was flirting and making jokes. He was smoking with his right hand but his left was alternating between caressing my thigh, rubbing up my arm and massaging my left shoulder. I hummed to stall and think about how best to phrase what I was thinking.

 

“Do you ever think about other people with me?”

 

“What?” Oliver passed the reefer back to me and his hands settled on my thighs.

 

“I mean… when you’re with me are you reminded of other people?” I could feel his heart start to beat faster against my back.

 

“If this is about the dancing last night—”

 

“No, no. I meant me. _I_ think about other people.” Oliver went completely still.

 

“…you’re thinking about other people?”

 

“No, I mean,” I sighed and cursed myself and turned around to face him. He was undressed anyway, but the expression on his face and in his eyes were the true vulnerability.

 

“Maybe it’s being back in Rome, but it’s…this has always been here.” I could see the panes of glass start to go up in his eyes as he prepared for some shattering revelation from me, and I held his hand and put it to my heart so he knew we were still in the same rhythm, playing the same score.

 

“I just mean that, when I was with other people, all I could think about was you. When I was with them, I would try so hard to find pieces of you and I guess I did. Because now whenever I see the pieces that form you, there’s a shadow of _them_ , too.” 

 

He was processing and his fingers flexed over my sternum.

 

“That’s all?” He asked and I nodded, if a little confused. He chuckled then and let his hand fall, he brought a leg up to his chest and rested an arm over his elbow. It would have been a chummy, lad’s kind of position if the position did not reveal his cock so artfully, like he had been rendered by Schiele.

 

“Goose.” He nudged me with his other foot and I leaned back. Our mood and connection had turned to one more of friends than lovers, it didn’t happen often but I loved these moments in another way. “Remembering isn’t a bad thing.”

 

“Does it bother you?” He stuck out his bottom lip and shrugged, reached for his bag so he could start rolling up another one. He was trying to be nonchalant, and I supposed he wasn’t necessarily lying, but he would still get jumpy whenever I mentioned other people.

 

“Only if it bothers you. People feel things differently and you have always… been so _you_.” I couldn’t tell if he was philosophising like this because he meant to or because he was under the influence. “You’ve always compared, and thought… fluidly.”

 

“It does bother me.”

 

“Why?” He was licking at the roll seam, now, and I had seen him do it hundreds of times but it was still arousing.

 

“Because,” I couldn’t articulate it because if I said what I wanted in the only words I could think of, now, he would overreact or spring into a professorial sermon about acceptance. It felt dirty to have been fucking him last night and think it was how I used to fight Allegra in bed. It felt dirty when he was sucking me off and I was stroking him, because it was like the time Paolo had managed to convince me to let his friend join us in bed except Umberto’s cock would have been in my mouth, too. It felt dirty when he moaned my name all weak and entirely at my mercy because it was like how Nicola would submit and be the very definition of a bottom. Dirty wasn’t the right word, but it would have to do because all I wanted to do was scrub my brain clean so that all I could remember was Oliver.

 

“Because I only want to think of you. Don’t you want that?” I wanted him to be jealous, but then I didn’t. I supposed I was a jealous creature, the tug was constantly there in the pit of my stomach when there was someone who knew him for longer than I had, when there was someone he had a specific kind of tone and style of conversation for, when it felt like there was a drawer— however large, or small— inside his head where he kept memories of and for that person and that person alone and it was not mine to open.

 

He shrugged and pursed his lips again, this time passing me the joint for something to do instead of taking another drag. His eyes were searching my face, and mine his and it reminded me that even though we were one and we were as close as two people could be, there would always remain a cell-thick membrane between people because that was just the way we all were.

 

“You mean do I want to be the only person you’ve ever loved?” His tone was almost incredulous but also like he had finally put something together about me.

 

“Sure,”

 

“Well, I don’t. And I couldn’t be. You had other people before me, and you had others after, it's only natural.” I squinted at him a little. I could almost have been annoyed if I had the energy. How could he be so nonchalant? Was he saying these things because he thought it was what he should say or because it was what he really thought?

 

“That’s really how you feel?” There was half a heart beat of pause in his eyes and the flow of his breath in his chest.

 

“Yes.” He said, and there was _too_ much resolve in his voice for it to be true. I rested the joint in the ashtray and moved his limbs so I was sitting in his lap.

 

“You’d be _okay_ if I told you I used to jerk Paolo off like this, too?” I grasped his cock in the space between us and his gaze had shifted from a split second of surprise to steel, because I had never mentioned Paolo before by name. Good.

 

“You’d be _okay_ if I told you I used to go down on him like this, too?” I took him into my mouth and all the way down my throat at once, and when I came up looked right into his eyes, and I wondered if anyone had been this angry and aroused at the same time in the history of all blowjobs. I got up and got even closer to him, let my dick rest on his sternum as I applied lube and let him slide up and down the seam of my ass. His gaze was angry and stony, and I needed to do something to push him over the edge.

 

“You’d be _okay_ if I told you that Marzia would tease my cock like this because she wondered what it would be like to—” with a yell and a burst of energy, he pushed me on my back and bent to kiss me and bite my lip, but with a pressure that was meant to hurt.

 

“Fine. You want me to be angry? What a brat,” he fisted my cock and only allowed me two tugs of relief before manhandling me so that I was turned on my stomach. I thought I knew what he was going to do and then—

 

I yelped, and it turned into a moan as I felt the sting of his gigantic palm on my left cheek. He grabbed at me and straddled my thighs before he slapped the other, the tip of his cock just brushing the junction of my thighs.

 

“You want me to take you?” I moaned in agreement and his hand came down to paddle my other cheek. He kept repeating it and asking questions and I kept moaning in reply because it didn’t matter what it was I just wanted him to get to fucking me.

 

Finally, he pulled me up on to my knees and rammed into me from behind and I was babbling and probably laughed at some point— because he was finally admitting he was as jealous as me, and the delicious line between pain and pleasure made me feel delirious.

 

He came mean and hard, and rolled off to land next to where I was laying on my stomach— the sheets underneath were wet because of sweat, lube and my come but I didn’t move to remedy the filth because I was sure, and I knew I would not be able to sit properly for days to come.

 

“I can’t believe I let you bait me into that,” he was still panting. I grinned at him and he gave me an eye roll.

 

“Well, it’s not my fault. You promised we wouldn’t sleep until we each fucked the other once, and you clocked out two seconds after you came.” He laughed breathlessly and raked his hands through his hair.

 

“I can’t believe— so you thought you’d make me jealous?” He was looking up at me now, grinning but incredulous and thoroughly ruined.

 

“You _did_ fuck me twice as hard.” He laughed, and I laughed, and all was forgotten.

 

 

After a long shower during which we each examined what we had done to the other— there was a bruise on his inner thigh where I had grabbed him, there was a bruise on my collar bone where he had bitten me, and we were both sore in a way that experience taught would be very hard to hide.

 

When we got down to breakfast, mom and dad were sitting at a table sipping coffee serenely and my mother was saying something to my father as he multitasked and read his paper as usual.

 

“Good morning,” Oliver cleared his throat and started chattering to mother about the breakfast selection, but even this was probably not enough to detract from how we both had to sit very, _very_ carefully in our chairs.

 

“How did the party go after we left?” I asked.

 

“Oh, it was magnificent, wasn’t it, darling?” Mother started, and my father agreed too quickly and tried to recall too many details. I squinted and realised they had probably had just as much of a night as we did and hadn't stayed at the bar much longer after we had left with the others. Past the quick realisation, I tried not to dwell on it any longer.

 

After the late breakfast, we made our way to the Vatican, by my father’s suggestion. He winked at me, and I knew it was because he wanted —and he knew I wanted, too— to have a version of our experience with the Sistine, and the galleries, and St. Peter’s Square that included Oliver.

 

I simply observed and smiled as they chattered away about history, and the architecture, and bits and pieces of knowledge they knew about different papacies. Mom smiled at me and rolled her eyes.

 

“These boys are unstoppable,” she said. And I felt an indescribable ache in my heart as I realised I felt close to my mother in a way I had never thought that I would— we both loved men, and our men loved each other.

 

“Let them talk,” I said, and she smiled fondly at me and grasped my fingers with her own like she used to do when I was a child.

 

 

At night, we had dinner on Fernande’s boat again because we were due to leave the next day. We would take the train back to Milan, and Oliver and I continuing to our plane back to New York. Mom and dad had gone inside and were putting on records, and Oliver had insisted on helping Danielle with the dishes. I was left smoking with Fernande by the rails at the edge of the boat. 

 

“Oliver is different, now, because of you,” she said and I smiled.

 

“I hear that a lot, nowadays,” she laughed and patted my hand.

 

“It’s because it’s true, _mon_ _ange_. I saw him when he came back from Italy the first time, and when I left America he was still lost. I was sorry to leave and see him be that way,” she smoked pensively and in the dark with the water, and her glowing white hair Fernande looked like a fairy here to impart on me one more life lesson before she returned to wherever she came from.

 

“He said to me once, that he would never be able to live like I did. With Danielle.” She looked me in the eye, and all the layers of her eccentricities were gone. What I saw was a woman who had battled with society itself to get to where she was, and she had battled Death himself when he had come to try and claim the one she loved most.

 

“I think you know how precious you are to him.” She gave a small, quick nod almost to herself. Like she approved of me for him. “But, Elio.”

 

She looked me straight in the eye now and with the smoke of her cigarette swirling around her it made what she had to say even more important— perhaps she had organised this for emphasis.

 

“Love, love is important, yes. You make him feel safe. But more importantly, you make him _brave_.” She squeezed my hand, and turned back to face the water again.

 

“Who was it who said— yes, yes, monsieur Hemingway. The world kills the very good and the very gentle and the very brave impartially.” She took a long drag and exhaled. “My Danielle is all of those things. And I will not let the world take her before she has done all the things she meant to do.” 

 

She looked at me again, moved closer, and though her eyes were dark they were clearer and sharper than any I had ever seen before.

 

“The world was making good progress trying to break our Oliver. But you will _not_ let it. You can’t.” She pointed a finger into my chest, and all I could do was nod. 

 

“You know what I’m saying.” She said it as a statement, not as a question and I nodded again.

 

“ _Oui, madame_.” I replied and she gave me a wry smile and patted my cheek.

 

“I’ll let you two alone, hmm?” She said and patted my back as Oliver appeared between the two sliding doors that separated the living room and the deck. She kissed him on the cheek and went inside to where everyone else was enjoying Danielle’s large collection of Dalida records: she would never be over her death.

 

“What were you two speaking about?” Oliver asked, and as a breeze swept up his hair I wished we could remain as happy as this forever, living in our Rome bubble and floating in the middle of that fantasy on this boat. Going back to New York, the world— his world?— would keep trying to break him.

 

“You.” I said, and he wrapped an arm around my waist and pulled me close into his side. He sighed and I could tell he was thinking about what awaited at home, too.

 

“I hope one day we’ll be here in Italy again, and when we leave the only reason to be sad is to miss the food and wine.” I reached a hand to sooth his chest, and when I looked up he was smiling at me sadly.

 

“At least this time I have you with me,” and my heart hurt for him. I had felt this the morning after the first time I had topped him, and I felt it the night he broke down about Vimini. But now Fernande had given me the words and made me even more resolved in my mission— I was going to protect him from his family, the world, the universe, and _himself_ until the day I died.

 

“You’ll always have me. Whether you want me or not.” He chuckled.

 

“I always will.” He bent to kiss me softly.

 

“You never told me what Josh said on the phone.” He sighed again, but it was more frustration than sadness.

 

“He called to tell me that Bubba and mom fought after I left, the whole family split up and left the holiday early because it was so strained. To top it all off, he got a call from my father asking what the hell happened. He wasn’t in the house when Frances confronted me, and so far no one will tell him what’s going on.” He pinched his brow in stress.

 

“Josh tried to blow him off as best he could, he only told him I’d gone to Italy. He didn’t think it was his place to tell, and he did the right thing, I love him for it. But that means I have to do it all over again and tell him everything. It’s like Frances was just the warm up, or something.” His eyes were closed and I tried my best to soothe him, but what could I say? Oliver had said his dad would have carted him off to a correctional facility, and that was all I knew about the man.

 

“Whatever it is, you have me. You have Josh and Marilyn. You have your grandmother. You have people who care about you and you’re standing on your own two feet.” He scoffed and turned to face me.

 

“He’ll knock me down, Elio. That’s what he does.”

 

“And you’ll get back up.” I gripped the front of his sweater, and gave him a pointed look. 

 

Then, there was more steel, more strength, more stone. Whatever came for him— for us— we would fight back, and we would not be broken.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OOooo we await the appearance of Oliver's father, the Boss Fight lmao. I hope this chapter comes across okay, I wrote and rewrote a couple times, it's inspired by a particular line in the last section from the book where Elio mentions another person who had influenced him a lot, perhaps as much as Oliver did. This is probably not how he might have dealt with that in the book, but interesting to consider nonetheless!


	21. The F-Word

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Elio's POV continues. Whew, some slurs in this chapter, just a warning.

It was bittersweet when we left Rome for Milan in the morning. There was the kind of noise at the station that filled your ears and made you feel unbalanced, even though your other faculties were not inhibited. Anchise was already at the station waiting for mom and dad when we got out, and we all said goodbye.

 

“Take care, _tesoro_ , we love you more than you know,” mom kissed me once more on the cheek. Dad gave me one of his smiles, and it was enough to say all he needed to say.

 

They hugged and kissed Oliver as well, and it was a much quieter goodbye than last time. Before, they had been joking and laughing and speaking pleasantries, that thing that all adults did to create some sort of fanfare around a goodbye with a person that you were almost entirely sure you would never see again— but there was no need for that, now, because we were permanent. No more gaudy hellos and goodbyes, he said ‘later’ to make them laugh, but the word was no longer any deeper than it was on paper. It was just what it was: I’ll be back.

 

It didn’t kick in until we got to the airport, but I could see the clouds start to form in his eyes. As we were in the line waiting to board he squeezed my fingers.

 

“You’re really coming with me.” He was smiling, a little smirk curling his lips that I could not kiss at the moment. 

 

“Wherever you go,” I said and he huffed a small chuckle before walking up to the immigration officer.

 

It didn’t really start until we were on the plane. He brushed it off as anxiety about flying, which I had to take his word for because we had not done this together before. I fell asleep soon after, the whirring of the engines sending me off like a baby. When I woke, he had covered me with a blanket and he was sitting in his seat like a statue, arms in a position of supposed comfort on the arm rests but his torso and neck stiff. He turned to give me a tired smile before he closed his eyes to pretend that he was getting to sleep. 

 

Was this what he was like on the flight back the first time? Last time he was thinking about me, and now he was thinking about his father. Both times all there was was dread. 

 

We caught a cab back to his house— _our_ house. There was an odd feeling in my chest like I was in some sort of purgatory, because although everything was familiar enough to me by now, New York had still only been my home for a few months. And now, to have not only friends but _Oliver_ and Oliver’s house was my house, his friends my friends, his bed my bed, my coffeemaker his coffeemaker. I held his hand in the seat between us, and I didn’t say it but I was sure he felt it too.

 

Oliver fiddled with the keys and when we walked into the living room, we both made sounds of surprise.

 

“Is that—”

 

“Yeah, it’s here.” 

 

I dropped my suitcase and made my way over to it— in the living room, it was almost unassuming in how well it fit in with all the other furniture, there was a brand new, upright Yamaha piano.

 

“You didn’t,” I went up to stroke the top and opened the keyboard cover gently. Oliver looked surprised himself, but this clearly had to have been something he had planned.

 

“I almost forgot. I ordered it after Thanksgiving and I’m sorry it’s only an upright, but I was going to get it fitted and installed while you were in Italy, so I asked Josh—”

 

At this point I had already crashed into him, and he twirled us, my feet hitting the coffee table before he put me down.

 

“Thank you.”

 

“If you think about it, it’s really a present for _me_ because I love hearing you play so much.” He grinned and I shoved my hands up his shirt, and like every time, the muscles in his stomach tensed deliciously.

 

“Get in the shower with me.”

 

 

We ordered takeout for dinner what with nothing in the fridge. It turned out that Oliver had asked Josh to come back to the house to let the piano delivery people in, on that phone call. After eating and a shower, I played everything he wanted and he stood behind me kissing my neck and massaging my shoulders. We savoured the deliciousness of the crisp sound of the newly tuned piano.

 

“Do you like it?” Oliver had already asked me many times already, and I had insisted each time that it was perfect and thoughtful and everything I could have wanted for my birthday. “You deserve a piano like the one that had been in the penthouse.”

 

“Of course I like it. How do I make you believe me? Should I suck you off again?” I had swivelled around on the chair, my hands on each side of his hips and it was the perfect vantage point from which to do what I had suggested. He huffed a laugh and batted my hands away, retiring to the couch.

 

“I don’t thank Josh enough. We should have them over, soon.” He said. I hummed in agreement and continued playing his favourite nighttime Handel. I would have played all the way until morning, if he asked,just to relax him and keep his mind off of his family.

 

We took a break, Oliver mixed a drink for us to sip on so we would get to sleep and start adjusting back to Eastern time. We were speaking about the impending return to school, when someone knocked on the door. It was past ten at night. Perhaps it was one of the neighbours. Oliver shrugged.

 

“It’s probably nothing.” I stayed on the couch but a feeling filled my stomach, my chest, and then my throat as I felt something was very, very wrong.

 

“…father?” At that, I jumped up and couldn’t decide whether I should make my way to the hallway to stand next to Oliver or hide so that my presence wouldn’t make this ambush worse. I collected our drinks from the table and decided I would pretend I had been in the kitchen.

 

“Oliver. Hope your trip to Italy was _pleasant_.” His loud footsteps were already turning towards the living room.

 

“How did you even know I was back?”

 

“I have friends at immigration, son. Don’t be stupid.” His voice was too close now, and I knew he was standing in the door of the living room. “Now, you— who is this?”

 

I turned from where I was standing in the middle of the kitchen to face the man who had held, and who perhaps still did hold, an iron fist around Oliver’s happiness the entirety of his childhood. 

 

Oliver looked like him and yet not at all. He was shorter by a foot but his proportions and build were the same as his son’s. Oliver walked in after him and stood a distance between us, almost as if he expected his father to hit me.

 

“I’m Elio Perlman, sir. It’s a pleasure to meet you.” I set the glasses back down on the coffee table and tried to act my most composed and give my firmest handshake despite the fact I was only in my pyjamas.

 

“Vernon, but _you_ can keep calling me sir. You’re a friend or what?” He returned. His hands engulfed mine and even though I was already gripping my hardest, he came out on top. He kept standing where he was, unmoving, he wouldn’t move until I answered. I took a quick glance at Oliver, not wanting to answer in a way he didn’t want.

 

“God, dad, just sit down.” Still fixing me with his steel blue eyes, they were a deeper shade than Oliver’s and perhaps they’d be pleasant if you were someone he was trying to charm but right now they were cutting into my resolve. Oliver pushed me to the armchair but kept standing. 

 

“What are you doing here?” Oliver said. His tone was firm and I tried to telepathically communicate my support to him. Even though this was not his own house, the way that Vernon occupied the couch with his legs spread and one arm over the back was domineering and his presence seemed to take up five feet of the air in front of him.

 

“What am I doing here? To find out what the hell you did to your mother. I cannot get a break in that damn house. And— this is our business, who the hell is this kid, will you get out?” He switched from shooting daggers with his words at Oliver back to me and he had done it so smoothly I didn’t even realise I was the target of his attack until seconds later. 

 

The silence hung heavy and pressed at my chest and throat and it felt like it was trying to get inside of my through my nose and mouth until I suffocated.

 

“Dad.” Oliver waited until Vernon’s gaze tore away from me and back to him. “We live together.”

 

“You’re so poor you have to have a roommate like a college dope?” The critique came out of his mouth quickly, and as soon as he finished what he was saying you could see him actually start to process what Oliver had said.

 

“No,” Oliver started.

 

“God, _damn_ it.” Vernon bellowed and stood up, his right arm shaking as he couldn’t decide if he was going to go in to punch, yet.

 

“You faggot.” The way he spit out the words in Oliver’s face made me blind with rage, and before I could think about what I was doing I had grabbed his arm before it could collide with any part of Oliver.

 

“Keep your hands off me,” he yelled and his other fist that I was not holding came to hit my face somewhere between my cheekbone and jaw. I had fallen into the couch on impact, and the punch being so close to my ear made me dizzy.

 

“Get the fuck out of my house,” that loud yelling was Oliver’s now, and through the blur of my tears, I saw him grab the front of his father’s shirt and punch him square in the nose and let him fall to the ground.

 

“What the fuck were you _thinking_ ,” Vernon bellowed and started to get up, made use of the momentum, the words preceding a punch he managed to land on Oliver’s jaw and at that I tried to get back up and keep fighting but fell back on the couch when my head throbbed and spun. Oliver, taller and stronger, finally used his full strength to grab the front of his father’s shirt and pull so that his balance faltered.

 

“So what, huh? What does it matter to you? Yeah, fine, I’m a _faggot_. Is that gonna be egg on your precious face?” He spit a mix of blood and saliva onto Vernon’s face, and though the man deserved it I could hardly believe this was my Oliver. His father said nothing, could feel he was clearly overpowered and that Oliver was not above doing more physical damage if he needed to.

 

“This is all because of your mother.” Vernon said it through gritted teeth. Oliver threw his head back and laughed hysterically, and it terrified both myself and his father. His lip was bleeding, his neck and chest were flushed from anger and the veins in his neck were standing out. His eyes were crazed and he was shaking with anger when he finally stopped.

 

“You’re finally admitting you were absent? And you’re blaming _her_? Neither of you contributed _anything_ to who I am now.” A long pause.

 

“Who wants a faggot for a son anyway?” 

 

Oliver shook his father before throwing him hard into the couch. He landed and collided with me before fumbling and falling to the floor.

 

“Go upstairs, Elio.” Oliver’s tone changed again and it was soft, and when I looked at him all I could see was hurt. He was scaring me before and now he confused me, and I didn’t have any alternative on what to say or do next so I did as told. I started making my way up the stairs, and Oliver stalked out of the front door, leaving it open. I was at the turn of the stairwell and looked down to his father who had propped himself up against the couch. Blood was streaming from his nose. He felt my stare on him and looked up, gave a bitter, hateful laugh. I went upstairs before I could hear what hideous thing he meant to say, and saw Oliver make his way back in with a man in a suit, probably the chauffeur.

 

“Take him home. Get him ice or something, I guess.”

 

 

I was sitting on the edge of the bed, holding myself. The right side of my face was throbbing, but I hadn’t bothered to look in a mirror to see how swollen it was. Everything had happened so quickly, and I had been hit, but all I could think about was all the different ways Vernon had managed to spit out that _word_ and the split second of complete shattering and shock on Oliver’s face. 

 

Oliver came in after what could have been minutes or hours and was holding a napkin full of ice to his face and had another in hand for me.

 

“Fuck, I’m so sorry,” he knelt in front of me, put down the ice on the bed, and held my head between his hands, soothing the swelling on the right. He had completely changed back, once again, the look in his eyes the Oliver I knew. His thumbs swiped across my cheeks and I realised I was crying. He shushed me and sat up on the bed, pulled my legs into his lap. With one hand he held me to his chest and the other he held ice up to my face.

 

“I’m so sorry,” he kept whispering and rocking me back and forth, and despite me wanting consciously tocomfort him, I could not stop blubbering from the shock.

 

“What about you?” I managed to choke out and pulled away to grab the other pile of now-half-melted ice and tried to put it up to his jaw. He batted me away and, of all things, smiled. If a little tiredly, but it was full of all his fondness and I thought he must have gotten some kind of concussion.

 

“I’m a delinquent, remember? This is a jaw that’s been punched before,” he removed the ice from my hand and tossed it into the nearby bin before soothing and petting my cheek. He smiled sadly.

 

“You’ll be fine, but it’s gonna hurt and maybe swell for a couple days. Probably won’t bruise, if we’re lucky.”

 

“Have you seen _your_ face? It’s swollen, too,” I sputtered. He laughed heartily.

 

“Sure. But it’s not as pretty as yours.” He got up to retrieve the bruise cream.

 

“Guess we’re finally using this for what it’s meant for.” He was trying to lighten the mood, and it should have been my job but he seemed so calm I didn’t want to project onto him unnecessarily. I didn’t reply, and let him apply the cool cream to my face. He was doing it gingerly, more than he needed to be.

 

“Did I scare you?” He finally said softly. I couldn’t reply but sought his eyes, and hoped he would just understand. It had been scary, we had never tread into anger like _that_ before, between us. And I hoped we wouldn’t, but what about years down the line? What if one day we fought, would it end like that?

 

“I will _never_ do anything like that again. Ever. Don’t even think about it. It’s not me, anymore.” He put down the cream and held one of my hands between his. “I’d sworn off fighting a long time ago, but when he hit _you_ —”

 

Oliver closed his eyes and took a deep breath, held my hand to his heart, and I could feel it kick at first and then it calmed again. When he opened his eyes there was a resolve and seriousness.

 

“I haven’t been an angry person in a long time. But he hurt you, and I wanted to kill him for a second. I can’t believe it.” He scoffed. “Well, I guess I can believe it but.”

 

He trailed off and sighed.

 

“Are you okay?” I asked. He looked at me for a long time.

 

“I didn’t know what exactly to expect from him. I knew he’d call me… that, eventually. But I guess to hear it in real life is different to the concept.” Tears filled his eyes, but he was resolved to not let them fall. He laughed again.

 

“Well, it’s over now. Maybe it’s better that neither of them will ever speak to me again. I’m free.”

 

He was smiling and trying to rationalise the situation, and I supposed to some degree that he was right. Finally not having to deal with them would be freeing, but he was obviously trying to not approach the fact it still affected him. The look in his eyes after his father first said the word shocked me and shook me to the core— he looked so young, so vulnerable and completely at the mercy of what his father thought. It would be burned in my memory forever. 

 

Oliver turned off the lights and suggested we go to bed, and we got under the covers. We usually cuddled and if he didn’t reach for me first I would lay on top of him. But tonight? He got in bed and laid there completely straight. I knew he wasn’t going to get to sleep, but he needed the darkness and silence- for me to just be _there_.

 

“I love you.” I said. He didn’t reply, but I thought he nodded and he curled a hand around my forearm. 

 

It was too much to process, too much to handle, too much to worry about and I could feel in my heart he was on the verge of breaking. I knew that if I reached over now, and showed him that I thought he needed to be comforted, when it was dark and he no longer felt like joking, that the thin shell of calm and normalcy that wrapped his turmoil would shatter. As always, all I could do was wait for him to come around, and in the meantime show him that nothing had changed.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope I did the moment justice, it's a hard moment to get into. Let me know what you thought


	22. Don't Go, Come Home

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Back to Oliver's POV!! Title comes from the lyrics of John Lennon's [Mother](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sPYsMM1FvXs). Completely heartbreaking song and very fitting!!

If I had fallen asleep at all, it was into that still-lucid state in between thinking and dreaming with your mind still racing while your body clocked out. I jolted awake and my heart was pounding so hard it felt like the mattress was moving underneath me. I looked over at Elio: he had curled in onto his side towards me, a hand placed soothingly on my arm. I covered it with my hand and tried to calm myself, but could _not_ for the life of me.

 

My heart was pounding and pounding, I could feel it in my ears and in my swollen jaw and it felt like I was dying— I had been in fights before and this had never happened. It could have been adrenaline, it could have been a panic attack, or maybe I was really having a heart attack. I got out of bed so as not to wake Elio and got into the bathroom and splashed water on my face. 

 

I couldn’t fucking believe it. I was anxious and angry and worried and indignant about a thousand things at once. It had finally happened, it had all finally happened, and for the first time in my life I fought back. Dad had tried before, but slaps and pushes here and there were all it got to and I had always been too afraid to do any damage. Last time we had gotten anywhere close to this I had only been twenty. Between then and now, I had fought men even bigger than me— I could not let him pull one over on me, and especially not on Elio.

 

_Elio_.

 

I felt the dread drop my stomach all the way down into my feet the moment he started reaching to stop my father from hitting me. Why couldn’t I have reacted faster so that he wouldn’t have gotten hurt?

 

_God_. 

 

Elio, he had hurt _Elio_. My Elio. The only realm in my life that was good and pure and that had, at the very least, started with no fear or worries. I wanted to leave now in the middle of the night to hurt my father even more, but this was not who I was now, not who I should be and not the one I wanted to be while I was with Elio. What was the point of returning to the mindset of the angry adolescent who took out his aggression and and pent up anger on strangers in ratty bar fights? Looking back, we were probably all just as troubled as the other, where else would you find boys outside of the school yard raring to go?

 

And Elio had had to see all of that, be in the middle of it. I was right, he never would have loved who I was then. But I guess I hadn’t either. 

 

I had spit fighting words into dad’s face, and I had meant them, but I felt the confidence and resolve that I had built over the years and months start to crumble. In the darkness, in the quiet, I had allowed his words get to that once grain of sand’s worth of insecurity and then let it infest — re-infest?— the rest of me. 

 

I looked up in the mirror, and saw my broken lip, the slight swelling of the left side of my jaw, the limp sweaty hair and the look in my own eyes. I could have been the undead, were it not for the incessant throbbing my jaw that reminded me I was still alive, and had to be to get through all this. 

 

I turned and sat at the edge of the tub. I couldn’t look at myself in this state, because how had I let my father reduce me to this once again? I had been on top of the world— I was on top of the world in Rome, with Elio.

 

But now. Now, my father was dragging everything up from my formative years. I had shelved those people away so neatly, managed to remove myself and keep a distance— they were like volumes of books that the professor who passed their office on to me had left on the shelves. 

 

And now, all these parts of my life were flying off the shelves and into my face and converging on who I was now— and I would have to show and explain to Elio all I had been in those evolving years. But I only wanted him to know me now, to remember me as this version that I had worked so hard to _become_ , the one who was the most free from both the direct impact and aftershocks of the Frances-Vernon years and to know the version of myself that I had been able to build _with_ him. 

 

It wasn’t that Elio would judge, but from the pity and sadness and almost surprise that had been in his eyes just hours before… I couldn’t look him in the eye and keep the smokescreen-version of my current self propped up when he could see past all of that and see the remnants of the broken childhood memories, half-baked identities and shattered confidences. He knew me and saw me better than I ever could, and I didn’t want him to show me where I was still cracking. Because he knew. He had to. Because he was in the process of putting me back together.

 

The time was just past five in the morning, now, and I felt the itch to get out of the house, I wanted— needed to leave before Elio got up and I saw myself reflected in his eyes. 

 

 

An hour or so, a long stretch of subway and some walking later, I was in the suburbs and turning in to Bubba’s neighbourhood. I hadn’t called ahead, so as to not alarm her, but I supposed your adult grandson turning up on your doorstep unannounced at daybreak would be alarming regardless.

 

I knew her and June woke early, and if I timed it right, maybe June would be smoking outside. 

 

The street was quiet and grey, the snow on the ground starkly reflective. The street was empty and almost eerie because it was no longer the dead of night and yet still a ways away from the first bursts of movement of the day. Approaching Bubba and June’s house, all seemed quiet. All the curtains were drawn, and I debated whether or not to wait until at least the maid turned on the lights and started puttering in the kitchen for breakfast. But as I debated, I saw the faint clouds of smoke coming from the backyard. It had to be June. 

 

I made my way to the back gate, and thought I must have looked like the worst burglar in the world to anyone who might happen to see me. I tapped at the wood slats and on the metal handle until it finally opened to reveal June who had wrapped herself in two coats on top of her bathrobe. 

 

“Goodness, Oliver,” she let her cigarette fall to the damp ground and wrapped me into a hug before letting me in. 

 

“I’m sorry about this, I didn’t want to alarm you two but—” she shushed me.

 

“Well, I’m still alarmed, young man. And you’ve caught me without my makeup and my mink, it’s not fair to ambush a lady like this.” June retrieved two cigarettes primly from her cigarette case resting on the table they had in the garden, and lit one for me.

 

“We’ve all been worried about you, sonny. Your bubba especially.” She took a pensive drag, and squinted. “What happened to your face?”

 

“Later,” I shrugged. “Has bubba told you?”

 

She sighed and pressed her lips to a line.

 

“Yes. And I’m going to tell you the truth. I was unsure at first, because that’s just not what we did in our day.” She smoothed a hand down my arm, sensing the tension.

 

“But if there’s anything I ever wanted you to learn from me, it’s to live life for yourself. That’ll save you the trouble of having to divorce two oppressive husbands. And I bought you that Ziggy Stardust album for a reason, too.” She exhaled a mouthful of smoke. “I want you to be you, and to be happy. And if this is you, and your boyfriend makes you happy then… what do I have to say about it, hmm? Only that I’m happy _for_ you.”

 

I hugged her firmly and she patted my back, saying sweet things and playing it off. But I knew it couldn’t have been easy for her to come to a conclusion like this, and if June was okay then bubba had to be, as well. _Thank God_.

 

June let us back in and sat me on the couch in their elaborate, pristine living room. I, dressed in my sweatshirt and rough jeans, was entirely out of place. 

 

“Loretta, look who’s here,” she started to call at the top of the steps. I heard shuffling and the closing of the door and then bubba appeared, gasped and ran as fast down the stairs as she could.

 

“God, Oliver,” she hugged me, hard, around the waist and patted me all over where she could reach. She gasped again when she saw my face.

 

“The hell happened to you in Italy?” She asked shrilly.

 

“It wasn’t in Italy, it was last night.”

 

“What do you mean, that’s crazy, who did this?” I hesitated because I knew the moment I told her it would break her heart and the tears that wanted to form would surely spill over.

 

“Dad.” 

 

Bubba swore a string of profanities and turned away, wringing her hands. She sat herself down on the couch.

 

“God damn _Vernon_?” June exclaimed, I could only nod.

 

“How the hell— Tell me you gave him what was coming to him, too.” I recounted what had happened the night before, and was only interrupted once for bubba to ask the maid to get me ice. 

 

By the time I finished, bubba was shaking with anger and she got up from the couch and turned around so June and I couldn’t see her face. 

 

“I’m sorry.” She finally choked, and I could hear she was crying. This was what I couldn’t handle— seeing her heart break for me.

 

“For what, bubba? You couldn’t have done anything.” 

 

She was holding a hand to her lips, trying to hold in her sobs.

 

“I should have tried harder to take you from them when you were younger. Every time it would end with your mother and I not speaking because I was too proud, but if I pushed harder she would have given you to me.” I could feel the familiar pressure fill my chest and pull at my throat.

 

“Bubba, it wasn’t your job. I’ve said it before. You did all you could have.” 

 

Bubba was still standing and I couldn’t take watching her cry anymore so I hugged her to me and sat us back down on the couch. Her back was thin and her arms felt brittle under my touch, and it reminded me that even though she had been a staple in my life, that she would be gone one day.

 

“I should have raised her better, then. Her and Willard.” 

 

“Loretta—” June started, she had tears in her eyes, too.

 

“No, June. You know it.” Bubba pulled back fiercely, and composed herself like all good high society ladies would do. 

 

“Oliver. Do you know why people have children?” I shook my head no and she continued.

 

“It’s to fix the mistakes they think their parents made with them. To create better people.” She gave a bitter laugh. “And grandchildren? People want grandchildren to do what they should have done first time around, raising their actual kids.”

 

I sat back, shocked. Bubba was colourful and had always been supportive to me, and she had told stories of her youth but I had always only seen her as some sort of hero, a figure. That she had always existed in the same appearance as I knew her. She had never admitted something as visceral as this.

 

“What?” I looked to June, and she was only looking down at the floor. This was something they had spoken about before.

 

“I always told your grandfather that getting rich when we did, when the business picked up again. It was the worst time it could have happened.” The sound of anger and frustration was raw in the strain of her throat, and it terrified me. Bubba had always appeared so infallible, even when she told stories about the hardship she always came out on top.

 

“Your grandfather was trying to jumpstart the businesses we had, and we were working so hard for so many years when Willard and Frances were still young. But that was the thing, we weren’t gaining traction, we could still go home. But then everything suddenly picked up, and it was right when they were getting to be teenagers, and we just had to let go so we could keep everything running.” The faraway look in her eyes was like she could take herself back and remember the exact moment everything went wrong.

 

“So what did they have? No parents and all the money they could have wanted, and obviously Willard managed to satisfy all the whims any thirteen year old boy could have, and Frances clammed up and made all these rules for herself— because I wasn’t there to help her. That’s why she’s like this with you.” Tears were streaming down her face, and I had never seen her cry like this since grandfather’s funeral. I held and shushed her, and saw June crying, too. What was I going to do, now?

 

“Bubba. Listen to me, everything happens for a reason. And we can’t think about what-ifs. How far back could we go? Hmm? There’d be no end, and it won’t get us anywhere.” Bubba gave me a look of and a shaky sigh.

 

“When your mother and I fought after you left, it turned more into what had went wrong between us instead of between the two of you. And I apologised, I begged her to just give you a chance, and that I was going to make more of an effort from now on. I was tired of fighting her, I _am_ tired of fighting her. And that’s all it’s been at the end of the day, between us, it’s always been about the fact that she never got what she needed from me.” When she said that, I had to look away, and focus instead on the handle of the teacup they had set down in front of me. I was my mother, we were only looking for the same thing. Love. Just love. 

 

And at least I had Elio. Frances? She only had my father, and he was as much of a husband to her as he was a father to me— not at all.

 

June started asking me about Italy and Elio to change the topic, and by the time I left we were in much better spirits. I promised to be in touch soon, to take care of my face all the rest. I took the subway halfway back and got off early so I could walk all the way down the river at the park. 

 

The day was overcast but not so bad, and people were out and about again. It was almost noon, and I had left a note for Elio telling him I’d be back soon, but I guessed he wouldn’t wake until late. By the time I got back, I’d only be gone a couple of hours.

 

I was no longer petrified of the idea of facing him. It sounded so stupid to have only made the realisation now, but being fallible and being vulnerable to the ones you loved— it would happen one day whether you wanted or not. And after bubba’s revelations, it was a difficult feeling to pinpoint. Her explanations shattered that superwoman image I had of her, but it made me appreciate her as she was all the more. She was so much older, she had always tried to be the role model and impart knowledge on me and now she was showing me her mistakes. She thought she owed me the truth and that I deserved it, even if it meant I had to see her in a new light or even be disappointed in her. And bubba was an authority, not an equal like Elio. Who did I think I was, ashamed to show him all the ugliness it took to get to where I was? 

 

This was my problem all along. I wanted to hold myself in an ivory tower of pristine image so that I could prove to everyone but more importantly myself that I knew myself, that I was different, that I was transcended now. But it only ever isolated me, and if I wanted Elio I had to make the journey down.

 

I had probably been walking more than an hour, and was nearing my usual spot. Among all the people wrapped in their winter clothes playing in the snow and throwing frisbees and footballs and the lot, was one single person standing alone. 

 

Elio was wrapped in his coat and one my scarves, and was standing in the middle of the grass, spinning around mindlessly. He had to have been looking for me.

 

“Elio!” I called. He started running over, and I grinned at the sight of him, but as he neared I saw that he was much less joyous— he was angry. Instead of a hug, he grabbed the front of my coat roughly.

 

“Do you know how worried I was? I thought you’d— I thought your father—” He was sputtering and couldn’t even get his words out past the frustration.

 

“I’m sorry, I went to bubba’s and I didn’t think you’d wake up—” he let go of me and stepped back.

 

“That’s not the problem. Couldn’t you have woken me to tell me instead of leaving a cryptic note ‘I’ll be back soon’? I called Marilyn, and they got to your grandmother after you’d left but it’s been two hours after that, Oliver. I thought you’d done something— something stupid.” Elio’s voice was shaking, his nose and cheeks red from the cold and a flush was rising up from his collar because he was angry. I hadn’t thought all this would have happened.

 

“I didn’t mean to worry you, I just needed to get out. What did you think I—”

 

“It could have been anything! You should have seen yourself last night, I didn’t push you to talk about it because I saw you _break_ right in front of my eyes. And then you were gone when I woke up and I was trying to find you for hours—” The hot tears started streaming down his face and I brought him in to a hug. He resisted at first, still angry, but eventually stopped and gripped at my waist.

 

“I’m sorry,” I whispered into his hair. “I should have told you. We should have talked last night but I was afraid. I was afraid of showing you how easily he toppled everything I am.”

 

“You know I—”

 

“I know you wouldn’t judge.” I smoothed his cheeks to wipe his tears, and his big green eyes staring up at me gave me hope. They were so unmarred, they were still looking at me the same way as those first days. “But telling you, would have meant telling myself that I wasn’t alright. That I still wasn’t alright. After years thinking I had overcome everything.”

 

Elio’s eyes softened and it wasn’t pity, not like last night— pity was only pity because there was distance. Now, I had closed it and he understood. Instead, my pain was his pain and the look in his eyes told me he was willing to shoulder it with me.

 

“Come on, let’s go home. Out of the cold.” He said, and pulled me by the sleeve to start walking back. 

 

“I’m already home.”

 

“What?” He turned around and gave me one of his little nose scrunches.

 

“I’m home as long as I'm standing next to you.” 

 

Elio snorted with exasperation and muttered something about me laying it on thick under his breath, but we both knew I meant it. 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I threw in that line about Ziggy Stardust because with the film's timeline Oliver would have been 13 when that album came out and no one can tell me that a music-loving, angsty, cynical tween Oliver WOULDN'T have connected to [Rock n' Roll Suicide](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YnoyiVZUxUk). Bowie has [covered](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sfu_7PzBQGs) Mother, too and it's an absolutely beautiful but again heartbreaking rendition.
> 
> Thank you for all the love and support, I appreciate every single kudos and comment!! All my love xx


	23. Know Thyself

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is a bit shorter but I didn't feel like adding more on to it because it didn't feel too right. We're also back to Elio's POV!

When we got home, I made coffee and sighed loudly that fresh off coming back from Italy, it could never compare to Mafalda’s. It tastes like you and it’s just as good, he replied.

 

“If you’re going for flattery,” I said as we sat down on the couch, legs tangled together. “It might be working.”

 

He scoffed and poked one of my calves, but then the mirth went away and he began stroking it pensively. When he looked up again, his blue eyes were pained and held something infinite encased in a house of glass— it was that look from outside the newsstand. 

 

“I’m sorry I had you worried.” He finally said, and I could feel all of his sincerity and earnestness in my bones. I sighed and cursed myself inwardly. I had been angry and worried, yes, but I didn’t mean to guilt him like this.

 

“It’s not your fault, I just overreacted and—”

 

“No, you were right to be frustrated, I was being vague and wrapped up in myself.”

 

It was like the after-dinner game between adults, each insisting that they should be the one to pay. If we kept going on like this, it would never go anywhere.

 

“Oliver. I— I want to be the one you come to, I want you to feel like you can talk to me.” Despite myself, my voice broke towards the end and he took a breath to start explaining but I stopped him.

 

“You’ve always been independent and these are problems that started a long time ago so you have people you already go to— I understand that, I do. I can’t expect you to just drop everything at once, and you shouldn’t.” He exhaled a long breath.

 

“I want to. I’m just used to… I’ve never had someone that I trust so completely as you, Elio. And it’s scary.” My heart broke at his words, and the many more he said with his eyes.

 

“Like a trust fall.” I wince a little at the cliché, and he returns it with a chuckle and brief pinch of my leg. “I’ve never had someone who I knew would catch me one hundred percent, you know. And even though I know it now, it’s still hard to take that first leap.”

 

I don’t know why but it seemed appropriate so I picked up his left foot and started massaging it, like he had done that time for me.

 

“I… your father, I can’t even fathom…” I was trying to get the words together in a way that was not insensitive. We both knew I never had and never would have any problem close to what Oliver had with his father, with my own parents. I felt small and stupid and out of my depth trying to comfort him, trying to empathise from a position of privilege, it didn’t have to show so painfully plainly in my speech.

 

“And I’m glad for it. Because no one _should_ be able to.” His tone was as strong and bitter as the coffee, and his chest heaved with a wave of frustration as he took a sip from his mug.

 

“I just thought that I had built and cemented enough that I could stay proud and myself no matter what he thought. ‘This is who I am and I don’t care’. But it’s like a curse,” he spit out the words with loathing I had never heard in his voice. “It’s like trying to build a house with quicksand or like they’re just constantly tearing it down. And I don’t know why I let them.”

 

This was a new admission of his, but then not at all. This was him all along, this Oliver had been slipping through the cracks all the time. He saw his life and his identity as a constant project, the push and pull of his desires and exerting control to mould himself into who he _should_ be. It was in the way he loved his eggs but would only have one, he would eat and drink as he liked but an itch kept him on a militant schedule of jogging and exercising to keep the consequences at bay, he would fuck me into the mattress and then lock himself away in his office to finish work, he would drink and smoke into oblivion at night and in the morning try to forget what he had indulged. Even then he turned food into scholarship and an art, getting just the right amount of drunk into scholarship and an art, loving me into scholarship and an art. Knowing was control, to know where he was and if he was going too far or not far enough.

 

To know _himself_ , to reason and weigh all of his decisions, to sculpt and keep what he thought was good and discard all that he thought was bad— he was setting his own frames and boundaries to prove that he was living by his own rules and not anyone else’s.

 

“It’s not wrong to want approval and acceptance.” I thought it must have sounded so hollow and cheap coming from me. He shook his head and laughed bitterly.

 

“Sure. But I shouldn’t _need_ it, its all so pointless. I thought if they saw what I could do on my own, that it was legitimate that they’d… at least _acknowledge_ it. But obviously, there’s no way but _their_ way.” he pushed his hair back and grabbed at it unnecessarily hard. I tried to stroke his leg as comfort.

 

“I don’t know. I just knew I never wanted to do anything that made me _unhappy_.”

 

“You never meant to fight.”

 

He looked down and nodded, and his light lashes caught the light just so, and with his feet in my lap he looked so much younger than all the experiences that had hardened him.

 

“I don’t want to live in the…negative space anymore. Because I finally know what makes me happy.” I looked at him, and I knew what he meant in my heart of hearts but the hue of anxiety that washed over his eyes as he searched my face showed me, once again, he was the shyest person I would ever know and now I knew where it came from.

 

I untangled our legs and shuffled us until he wrapped himself around me, securely. As always, I felt him relax little by little. I was glad because he wouldn’t let me do this last night.

 

“Does this make you happy?” I murmured, just to make him smile. 

 

“Completely, perfectly, incandescently ha—” I groaned but kissed him anyway. Trust him to diffuse any situation with a quote.

 

In bed that night, he was Rome-Oliver. He reached for me as soon as we were naked under the sheets and wrapped himself around me, a cheek on my shoulder. My Oliver of many extremes, all or nothing. For this small window in time, I was seeing him stripped down. 

 

He was not even this transparent to me in that last week in Crema when we had nothing to lose. He spent so much mental power trying to guess the exact motivations and characteristics that led people do and say what they did because it came from doing the same all through childhood with his family— guessing how conditional acceptance would be and how much he stood to lose at each turn.  He had seen through all the arrogant dinner guests we had that summer, he had seen through me even, just that he had held himself back and waited to see if I would do anything. He had turned it into a craft, like he did with everything, he was impeccable at it and had all his poker winnings to show for it. He had perfected being _good_ whatever good meant at the place and time. He had wanted to be good, he had been good and he would have continued to keep being good until he finally _felt_ good. Meeting me had thrown a wrench into that, at least internally, and now to be with me, because of me he had to introduce me into each facet of his life and see whether they remained or burned to the ground.

 

I had to remember what Fernande had told me. Even if some things had to burn, I could keep him from burning with them.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not sure if its on purpose on the part of Aciman or just a happy coincidence, but Oliver is involved with the pre-Socratics, yet his his key line is 'I know myself'. 'Know thyself' is a key Socratic, later Platonic, dictum! A play on the fact he's too quick by half at knowing, or that he doesn't really know anything at all? Hmm.... Anyway, one of my favourite threads throughout the book is Oliver knowing and not knowing and seeing through people etc., so I brought it in this way and I hope I did it justice!!
> 
> That quote Oliver uses is from Pride and Prejudice, and I suppose its a perfectly fine line but it always had me chuckling a little with its Extraness hahaha. All my love xx


	24. The Matriarch

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We've made it through the angst, phew! (For now...) Thankfully this chapter is happier! Update took longer than usual because responsibilities, so inspiration has been a struggle!! Back to Oliver's POV

When I woke, I discovered we had shifted in the night in a way that left me almost tucked up under Elio’s left arm. In the warm light I could see bits of dust swirling, and finally I got up on my side to look over at Elio.

 

As always, his mouth was just a little open and drew one to notice the way his jaw stretched the skin of his cheek. With him completely still, I could see the faint freckles that dotted his nose and the tops of his cheekbones. You wouldn’t notice ordinarily, but right after we kissed I would see them underneath his skin.

 

His upper lip was dotted with stubble, and he always complained that he would never be able to grow a proper beard like me. I would shrug and say, why rush it and cover your pretty face.

 

I placed a hand as lightly as I could on the centre of his chest. Not to wake him, but just to feel his breath move it up and down.  He didn’t move or open his eyes but he caught his bottom lip between his teeth. He was awake and I knew what he wanted.  I slid my hand down his chest to rest on the flat plane between his hip bones and just above where he really wanted to be touched.  Finally, he opened his eyes lazily and raised a hand to caress my face. My heart stuttered at the tenderness and I nudged into it more.

 

“I can’t believe how you’re here.”

 

The words flowed off my tongue easily and before I had even thought about it. It was the kind of truth that belonged only here: soft, comfortable, tucked in between the sheets and the covers.

 

He stroked my cheek with his thumb and propped himself up to kiss me. With the rhythm of our push and pull, of eating and being eaten, he rolled us until I was on my back again and he was covering me: legs slotted between my waist and arms and my head caged between his hands.

 

“Do you want to be inside me, or do you want me to be inside you?” He murmured against my bottom lip in a succession of almost half-kisses.

 

“I don’t know.” 

 

He hummed in consideration and then kissed down my body, took me all the way down the back of his throat and slid two fingers into me for good measure.

 

After we showered and as he towelled his hair, I could see him looking at me through the mirror.

 

“What?”

 

“I want to meet your grandmother.”

 

I sputtered, not because of his request, but because we had been doing filthy things to each other less than half an hour ago, and I was still staring at the droplets of water running down his back and dotting his ass now.

 

“Does the thought make you that uncomfortable?” He said it with what was almost a smile that revealed he was close to disappointed.

 

“No, of course not, you should. I just never think about her this soon after sex.” He chuckled.

 

“You did once say you wished everybody was as sick as me.” I grinned at the memory. It was one of my most favourites. 

 

“I recall that particular incident perfectly.”

 

 

On Monday, term started again and we left together in the morning, Elio was meeting Germain for coffee and I had my lectures. It was surreal to be so domestic after everything that had happened, and our blissful break in Italy. If we hadn’t reunited in October, I would have simply driven to and from the holiday and returned to the same boring routine. I had wanted only to mention the papers I had marked before the break at the end of the lecture, but as usual an eager student asked first thing and no one payed attention to what I taught that day.

 

Before I left for home, I retrieved the framed Monet postcard from under a pile of old manila folders in the cupboard I never opened. It looked the same, it hadn’t changed, but holding it again I realised that _I_ had. It used to be like holding a live grenade, and if I held it or looked at it too long I would explode in pain. But now, it was the harmless, sentimental keepsake it always was. 

 

I pressed the doorbell instead of using my keys when I got home just so Elio would have to answer the door, and he knew as much because he obliged and wrapped his arms around my neck.

 

“Guess what came in the mail today.” I don’t know, I replied, and he took me by the hand into the kitchen. On the table was a cardboard box, postmarked from Italy, addressed to both of us in what I easily recognised as Fernande’s handwriting. She insisted in writing block, but there was always a grace nonetheless.

 

I slid the contents out and grinned. There was a letter and a professionally printed and framed photograph, set in a dark wooden frame and museum glass, of the New Year’s eve party in Rome. It was the moment it struck midnight, and the room was full of bright colours of people’s clothes and the lights and the streamers that had been set off. 

 

Near the bottom left, I finally spotted Elio and myself. His hand was around the back of my neck and mine wereholding either side of his neck, the angle had caught more of his face. His cheek was hollowed with how hard we were trying to get at each other, and you could see me smiling into him.

 

“Read the letter.” Elio whispered and wrapped his arms around me from behind.

 

_Mes amours,_  

_I hope this letter finds you well, I do already miss you two so much. I received copies of the photograph soon after you left. If you remember, Uwe has connections with a gallery and had the photograph printed and sent out to everyone at the party, and I was tasked with forwarding it to you. We each took one look and knew this was an exquisite and special photograph for you two, I’m sure you’ll agree now that you’ve seen it, so we put in a little extra to have it framed. Cherish it._

_Yours,_

_Fernande_

 

“You know where this goes?” I walked back out to the living room and placed it on top of Elio’s piano, and retrieved the postcard from my bag and placed it next to the print.

 

We stood, arms around each other, for a minute or two just looking. This part of the house was truly ours, it was made of things we owned together and that held our connection. I could tell from the way Elio gripped my waist and the stray tear he wiped away that he felt it, too.

 

“What about when people come to visit?” 

 

“Exhibits A and B in lessons on true happiness.” 

 

He grinned, then, and kissed me.

 

 

It was the last full week of January when I finally plucked up the courage to call bubba about spending the next Sunday afternoon at her house with Elio. I could hear the buzz of joy in her tone as she exclaimed yes, and demanded to know what kind of pastries and sandwich fillings he liked best so she could ask the maid to make it.

 

We had Marilyn and Josh over for dinner in preparation to the meeting, and I didn’t know if it made it better or worse.

 

“Listen, you’ll do fine. She likes boys better than girls, and Oliver is her favourite, anyway. You’re golden.” Marilyn said, two glasses of wine in and shaving more parmesan over each bite of her meal.

 

Josh and I winced, but couldn’t disagree. Elio looked between us and back to Marilyn.

 

“What? It’s true. Things between us are better now, but don’t deny that that woman loves to nag.”

 

“I suppose,” I shrugged. Josh laughed.

 

“We’re not trying to scare you, kid. It’s just that there’s always been a process of getting to know bubba, and it’s happened every time we bring people home to meet her. Look, three things that woman loves are sincerity, refinement, and wit. They’re not things you’re lacking, bud,” he shrugged and Elio sat up a little straighter with all the inadvertent compliments he was being paid. Little punk.

 

“Maybe I’ll just keep playing whatever she likes and she’ll warm up.” He mused.

 

“I suppose that’s a strategy.” I chuckled. I knew, though, that there was an unspoken understanding between bubba and myself, this time. There was everything that had happened, of course, but I had also run our conversations through my head, and realised that on that drive up to Newport she had spoken neutrally, hadn’t implied I was dating a woman, and she hadn’t asked further when I didn’t specify. I couldn’t tell if she had known about me already, that moment, but I was sure she would not deploy her usual interrogative tactics. 

 

We spent the rest of the evening telling stories from Rome when they spotted the photograph on the piano, about bubba, Elio goofed on the keys and then played a few pieces, and everything was _good_. Really good.

 

 

Sunday rolled around, and Elio was nitpicking at himself in the mirror before we left. He arranged and rearranged his mass of curls, couldn’t decide how many buttons to button on his shirt. Should I wear a sweater over it? Will I look too young? What if she thinks I’m too bookish, or boring? I can’t wear _jeans_. But who dresses up for Sunday afternoon tea?

 

I was pleased and entertained by his continuous dressing, and unbuttoning, and redressing but I had to stop him somewhere before he threw all of his clothes out from the closet into the large pile that was forming on the bed next to me.

 

In the end, he put on one of the outfits he usually wore when he had a big meeting with his supervisor, and I dressed in jeans by his request because he was convinced that it would offset him as just formal enough. 

 

On the subway and then on the walk from the station to June and bubba’s house, he was tapping his fingers on his thighs in what he told me was the shape of a Brahms piece he had learnt because I told her he was one of her favourites. I wanted to kiss him for how much thought he had put into this.

 

We arrived in front of the house and I grinned at him, squeezed his hand briefly and rang the doorbell. The door swung open, almost as if by its own accord to reveal bubba and June stood shoulder to shoulder, hands folded, and the most ridiculous proprietary smiles in the middle of the foyer. It was like a tableau from a commercial or magazine spread on 'good' homes. I squinted at them over Elio’s shoulder, they were never like this, as they exclaimed and cooed all over him. It was clear they had prepared and set everything up and were just as nervous as Elio was. Bubba gave me a startled, wide-eyed look, and I could have laughed for how endearing she was being, and gave her a wave to calm her down.

 

“Come, Elio, let’s sit in the living room. We have tea, and I asked Oliver what kind of pastries you liked and—” Bubba took Elio, who was stunned into silence, by the arm and steered him towards the other room. June tugged at my elbow and we hung back behind them.

 

“She’s been like this all week, you know. Practicing questions to ask. Italy and music, she's got at least five for each.” June mused. I grinned. It was completely ridiculous, and if only each of them calmed down they would get along much less awkwardly but as it stood I would have to continue smoothing the process.

 

I hadn’t known what to expect from the meeting, in the past with the different girls I brought home she was poised and let them work for her attention. Bubba was a great lover of literature herself, but when she first met Marilyn she pretended not to be so she could hear how she would defend herself. But now, she was asking Elio questions non-stop, well peppered compliments throughout to show she was paying attention. We exchanged stories about Rome, and bubba regaled us with a story of when she had visited in the fifties.

 

"Frank and I were there for a few days alone before we met up with his friends to stay at a vineyard down in Tuscany," Elio made an appropriate noise of interest.

 

"We rented a vespa to see the sights, and I made him drive us around the Colosseum four times so I could really take it in. We were the original _Roman Holiday_ , you know." I laughed, because I could imagine her directing and steering from the back over granddad's shoulder as he complained but continued to do as she asked. More importantly, because bubba’s usual strategy was to then turn on the person I’d brought and discern how cultured they were dependent on where they had been. I couldn’t tell if she had let up because she had already been charmed or if she had finally decided to drop the affectation.

 

Elio asked her about the movies she liked, which ones were her favourite, and that conversation devolved to how I used to be obsessed with _Mary Poppins_ and refused to take medicine unless I was sung to, just like in the movie. Elio took a good long while laughing at that, and everyone bonded at my expense. After a while, June got up to smoke outside and invited Elio to join her. It was, obviously, a ploy to allow bubba and I to speak alone.

 

“You know, I’m liking you on your best behaviour. It’s nice.” I smirked and bubba reached round the coffee table to hit me on the knee.

 

“He’s a lovely young man, I can see why you…” She trailed off, not sure how to complete the sentence and I smiled at the effort she was making.

 

“Baby steps, hmm? You’re doing great.”

 

“I can see you really care about him. You look at him differently than all your other ones, even Marilyn. But I suppose we all know how that went, after all.” She pursed her lips and I rolled my eyes. I supposed I could allow her this for being so cordial thus far.

 

“That’s mean now, bubba. I think Marilyn would appreciate if you were nicer to her in the future, you've known her more than four years now.” She made a sound and muttered ‘I suppose’.

 

“Does he make you happy?” She asked seriously, and the look in her eyes was as earnest as I’d ever seen her.

 

“Elio?” I sounded more incredulous than I meant to but the question was almost strange to me because I loved him with every fibre of my being. “Of course.”

 

She didn't say anything but smiled cryptically into her tea.

 

When Elio and June returned, he seemed much less stiff than before and they were laughing about something or other. 

 

"We've spoken about your music, Elio, but won't you play for us, too?" Elio grinned and flexed his fingers, this was the moment he had been preparing for.

 

"Oliver told me that you like Brahms so I've prepared a medley of sorts." He explained and everyone murmured their pleasant surprise.

 

"Elio played at our Thanksgiving party and the director of the American Composers Orchestra complimented him," I said to neg him a little and fortify bubba's approval. He turned around on the stool and scrunched his nose at me in mock annoyance. 

 

"Well, now, we _have_ to hear it."

 

As always, he played beautifully and his selection was dynamic, alternating between light and pretty melodies and the faster and more energetic. Bubba, a great fan, recognised as each piece faded into the other and applauded, at which he would give a small, imperceptible smirk. 

 

When he finished, he took a small bow and returned to the seat next to me and I kissed him on the cheek. He was surprised, we hadn't really touched since we got here, but continued beaming all the same.

 

"That was beautiful, Elio. What a joy, better than any of the recordings I've ever bought." Bubba praised and Elio thanked her profusely. They exchanged a few questions and answers about music, regarding his thesis, and a recent concert by a pianist performing pieces of the Romantic era. Elio kept up of his own accord at each song and composer she mentioned, and I could feel bubba be more impressed and more smitten by the minute.

 

"I think it was rather below the belt for George Sand to write about Chopin like that," bubba said, referring to Karol in  _Lucrezia Floriani_. Elio considered this and took a bite of what must have been his third pastry.

 

"Perhaps. But to write about someone in that way, must mean they really made an impression on you. She must have cared at some point." Elio mused. 

 

"Would you do anything of the sort to Oliver?" She said it so nonchalantly I almost didn't register it.

 

"Bubba-" She was beginning to tread into her old waters.

 

"No, no. It's okay. I don't think we would ever fall out like they did." Elio was holding his ground.

 

"How can you be so sure?" Bubba peered at him sharply over her tea.

 

"I suppose I'm as sure as you can be about anything in life. I intend to love Oliver for a very long time, as long as he lets me." I was arrested in my seat as I stared at him. He paid me no heed and was meeting bubba's eyes with no hesitation. He had not so publicly declared his love like this to someone else before.

 

Bubba smirked and set down her teacup.

 

"Good. That's all I wanted to hear." 

 

 

When we left, it was almost six o'clock and they tried to get us to stay for dinner but we managed to peel away. 

 

"Come again soon, hmm? Maybe play some Chopin," bubba kissed Elio on the cheek at the door, paying no attention to me. "Come anyway even if Oliver's busy with his teacher things, then we can  _really_ gossip about him."

 

"Hey," I said indignantly but grinned as I pressed a shower of kisses to her and June's cheeks. 

 

We finally started making our way back to the subway, and June and bubba stood in the driveway waving until we rounded the block. As soon as we were out of sight, Elio ran into my chest and I laughed as we spun on the spot a few times.

 

"I survived," he gasped and when I let him go, he was grinning from ear to ear, his cheeks bunching up in the way I loved.

 

"I told you there was nothing to worry about," I said and he hooked a finger around one of mine until we saw someone walking up the street.

 

"You were right," he conceded. "I thought my heart was going to beat out of my chest and fall into my teacup at some point."

 

I laughed and ruffled his hair.

 

"It was incredibly sexy when you declared your love for me like that," I murmured lowly, and leaned in closer so his shoulder met mine as we walked. He looked up at me, a small smile on his perfect lips.

 

"I meant every word."

 

"I know." 

 

I could feel it in my heart, I could feel it in my bones, and I realised that as much as I knew with every part of me that I loved him I knew that he loved me, too.

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Confession, I wrote part of this at work because when inspiration strikes, inspiration strikes hahah xxx Let me know what you think!! Hello to all y'all new readers, so happy to have you here!


	25. Rose Tinted Cheeks

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hello!! Thank you all for reading and commenting, I appreciate it so much!! xx

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Flaneur vs badaud has the sort of general gist of hipster vs basic bitch hahahha, definitely more nuanced than that but you get the idea.
> 
> Thomas De Quincey and his Confessions of an Opium Eater (it's as crazy and problematic as it sounds) has been described as an example of a "proto" flaneur, influenced many 19th century writers at the time time and many after that.
> 
> Title comes from Tyler the Creator's [Rose Tinted Cheeks](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BAT477KNGfY)!!

As the weather was getting better and winter slowly, almost imperceptibly, melted into spring so did Oliver’s worries. He was happy and transferring the energy into upping his exercise regime. He worked harder at running his laps around the park and going to the gym more regularly. I joined him a few times, once or twice because I was curious and another once or twice when he asked.

 

It was an intriguing arena of masculinity and performative machismo. When we walked in, he nodded to the staff and a couple of other people as we passed by on the way to the changing rooms.

 

“You have gym friends?” I asked. In spite of being male myself, this was a realm that felt surreal for how little it applied to me, and for how it seemed that there were a new set of rules and etiquette to follow from the moment one stepped in. It felt as if Oliver was my safari guide, and if and when he left me alone for even a moment all the individuals prowling around the various machines would pounce on me. 

 

“Guys I see often, we recognise each other.” He shrugged in explanation, but it left me no less bewildered.

 

If I had not enjoyed the gym before, I did now, because Oliver instructed and demonstrated and showed me around the equipment. He was explaining technique, but I was focused only on the way his muscles shifted under his skin, as they contracted and elongated with whatever motion he was making with his arms. 

 

“Are you even listening?” He asked, and got up from the machine so we could switch positions.

 

“Sure,” I said, but now he stood in front of me, his hair ruffled, his sleeves rolled up at his shoulders and his hands on his hips, and I quickly forgot what little I had retained.

 

When I repeated the exercise Oliver corrected me, his long fingers pointing and lifting and guiding. In between sets, I was panting and trying not to spit up the large amount of water I had had to consume, and was looking up at him from the ground as he gave a lecture on how I could have strained my bicep with my swinging. I followed his body as he made to sit down next to me, and slapped my right shin.

 

“Your mind is just thoroughly in the gutter right now, isn’t it?” He asked quietly, but a smirk was beginning to form in his eyes and on his lips.

 

“Consider the fact that it was you who asked me to come and stare as you show off your muscles for the better part of an hour.” 

 

After that we left quickly, took a cab instead of walking the way we had come and raced up the stairs and into the shower where we showed each other exactly what we thought about the gym.

 

“I should have known that something like this might happen.” He said later. He was sprawled on the bed, the towel that had settled precariously on his hip bones now undone.

 

“You know I’m an easy whore for you,” I said and he guffawed.

 

The next few times he tried to get us to go together ended similarly, and we decided to stick to jogging only.

 

 

 

We took up Germain’s request for a dinner and night out, and while we had meant to make it to the clubs, the conversation, or debate, and wine had flowed easily between my friend, my lover, and Robin, the British exchange student who was a distant friend of a distant friend and had now taken over my room in Germain’s flat. 

 

When we had coffee on my return to New York, he had gossiped unduly about his new roommate.

 

“He’s kind of a stiff,” I sighed at my friend’s accusation.

 

“I’m going to assume you’re measuring using your warped ruler and that he’s a perfectly normal person.” Germain laughed.

 

“He’s vanilla and at the most bicurious, I don’t know how to talk to him. That’s why we should all have dinner, you and Oliver have more experience with his kind. But maybe this is all just because he’s English. ”

 

I ignored all the underlying hypocrisy in his words, it was too much to approach for just one moment.

 

“I’m surprised you haven’t tried to sleep with him yet.” I finally interjected into his profanity-peppered tirade about the truth of English stereotypes. For once, Germain paused and was speechless.

 

“Well, I’m trying to figure him out. And he’s more your type, anyway.” 

 

I scoffed.

 

“Type?” 

 

“Yes, blond, good shoulders, classical beauty. With Paolo, Oliver, I wonder if you’ll implode when the two of them end up in the same room.”

 

When we arrived at the trendy restaurant that Germain had selected, Robin and Germain were already seated and had elected to sit opposite each other on the four person table. One of us would have to sit next to him, and perhaps Oliver sensed some level of hesitation on my part but after a round of hand shakes and greetings, he had left me the seat next to Germain.

 

“Robin. Good to finally meet you, Germain’s been dropping facts and morsels since I moved in,” I made a quick joke back, and Oliver launched into small talk with gusto and professionalism. I was struck by the number of contradictions that made the boy up, and I realised why Germain was so ambivalent and had jumped to only ridiculous conclusions. Robin was beautiful in a cold way, his shade of blond and hazel eyes warm but restrained like a jewel displayed behind glass, a boyish youth with a shade of hubris and all in all like looking at Bouguereau’s Cupid in clubmaster glasses. I almost didn’t want to let myself entertain the thought, but perhaps this was a brief glimpse into a younger Oliver.

 

He was doing a masters in corporate law and trying to break into Wall Street but his background had been in literature.

 

The conversation had begun with Robin asking Oliver about Heraclitus, and in the soft, amorous haze of the kind of tipsy that red wine inspired, I noted how incredibly sexy I thought my boyfriend was when he was discussing what he loved. 

 

“Rather obscure, though. And very alone.” The younger blond had tried to make it an offhand comment, but four and a half glasses of wine deep and in a particularly hot-blooded mood, Oliver would not let the slight against his Weeping Philosopher go.

 

“Must it always be the famous who mean the most to us?” He asked loudly. Robin laughed.

 

“Maybe not, and I suppose he’d like the whole idea of being swept away with history.”

 

“Have you ever seen the _School of Athens_ in real life, my friend? Heraclitus might be an afterthought but he’s painted as Michelangelo and your annoying little blond head would be right under the sole of his boot!” We all laughed, and I supposed Robin thought he was joking but I could see in the way Oliver held his shoulders that he was more than a little serious. I bumped the top of my foot against the side of one of his ankles under the table.

 

“It’s okay, Oliver, Robin fancies himself a _flânuer_ but he’s really just a _badaud_. Don’t pay him any mind,” Germain supplied, and Robin’s attentions easily left Oliver’s staunch defence of Heraclitus. He was doing it in a good-natured manner, but an underlying incessancy gave him away as one who loved argument for the sake of argument. 

 

My contribution to the conversation petered out after a brief declaration for my love of Baudelaire and when Robin began trying to illustrate why Thomas De Quincey was a true _flâneur_ , Germain and Oliver wouldn’t have any of it.

 

“I see what you mean about him, now.” I said quietly into Germain’s ear in French as we said goodbye. It was perhaps exclusionist because neither Oliver and Robin understood, but that was precisely the point.

 

“That’s what I meant all along. Call me later, we’ll reach a real verdict when he’s not around.” We said our goodbyes and exchanged kisses on the cheek, and Robin commented how it was ‘the most French thing he’d seen’ and I fought the urge to roll my eyes.

 

We were not horribly far from the house, and so elected to walk, and when we parted we could still hear the pair of roommates bickering all the way down the street.

 

“I’m glad that’s over.” Oliver blurted out. The alcohol was wearing away, but he had an arm around my shoulders to support himself, anyway.

 

“You seemed like you were enjoying yourself,” I mused.

 

“No, I wasn’t. I couldn’t just let someone like _him_  win,” he said. It was reminiscent of his verdict on some of our less inspired dinner drudgery guests.

 

“Someone like him?”

 

“Arrogant, arguing for the sake of arguing. I let myself get away from me, I shouldn’t have indulged him so far.”

 

“No, I had already decided to do that and we couldn’t have both been silent.” He barked a laugh and pinched my cheek with the warm hand that had been on my shoulder.

 

“What did you think of him then?” Oliver asked. I made a noncommittal sound.

 

“Plenty of people like him out there. If anything, I feel guilty that Germain has to live with him.” He chuckled but didn’t say anything.

 

“What?” I finally asked. We were nearing the house and walking under the shadows cast by the streetlights on the still-bare trees.

 

“I just thought maybe you were a little intrigued by him.” He began, and from his tone I knew that _he_ knew that he was beginning to tread into choppy waters.

 

“Does everyone think I’m shallow? Just because he’s blond like you,” it came out more irritated than I meant to be, after all half of the exasperation was for Germain.

 

“Sorry, sorry,” Oliver slipped his arms around my waist under my coat just as we turned onto our street.

 

“Is that why you felt like fighting him?” I asked, the warmth of his body radiating into my skin had quickly melted away any brief annoyance.

 

“Maybe,” he said, and smiled at me with one of his rare, drunk, lop-sided smiles that made him look so young.

 

“Hmm, I like you as a fledgling crusader,” I said and Olivers fingers fumbled with the keys as my cold ones slipped up his shirt.

 

The door finally opened, and he kissed me urgently before we made our way upstairs through the darkness. We undressed quickly and embraced for a time, getting warm skin to skin. His splayed hands on my back slid lazily to come up and hold my face.

 

“I love when you blush like this.” He whispered, and I felt my cheeks and neck warm even more as his thumbs brushed my cheekbones.

 

“Blotchy, you mean.”

 

“No, rose-tinted.” 

 

He kissed me again, and I scraped down his back and buttocks with my nails before I could give in to the tenderness.

 

“What are you trying?” He said, with just enough of a controlled growl that made me clench around the ache in my ass.

 

“I like you angry, passionate.”

 

“Oh, so _this_ is what had you so quiet during dinner,” he murmured as he leaned to kiss and suck and bite at the front of my throat. He knew I loved when I, and the world, could see what he had done to me.

 

“Perhaps.”

 

“Naughty.” He pushed me back on the bed and gave my torso the same treatment, following his mouth with his nails as well. He got all the way down to just next to where my cock was straining and wet, and then surfaced to kiss and bite my lips raw as well.

 

“I’ll show you passionate.” He murmured against the corner of my mouth, and I could only moan in reply.

 

I started moaning and crying out from the moment he entered me, with every snap of his hips, with his relentless pounding and didn’t stop until he pulled out and rolled over next to me. But he didn’t stay still for long, and began licking my chest clean where I had come all over myself with the tip of his tongue.

 

I took his hand and put it to my ass until he groaned, conceded and slipped a finger back in.

 

“Insatiable,” he whispered and I swallowed his breath.

 

“Only for one certain god-like, hairy, tan, blond, athletic, passionate, intelligent man.” 

 

He gazed at me with half-lidded eyes, and parted lips turned up just so and we stayed in our content embrace till the morning.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WHoooo, hope you enjoyed this!! Not sure how often I will get to update in the next month because it is unfortunately finals season, so here is some good ol' fluff and smut, just because but also it wouldn't reaalllyy be fair to leave any big cliffhangers in the mean time. The [Bouguereau](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b3/Psycheabduct.jpg) I was thinking of for Robin.
> 
> As another interesting note for the character of Oliver, Heraclitus was notorius for being not quite cordial with his contemporaries and when Raphael was painting the School of Athens at the Vatican he was the only philosopher not in the original draft. However, at the time of painting Raphael visited Michelangelo while he was painting the Sistine and added him in to the only available space at the foreground of his painting, because he believed Michelangelo deserved to be recognised as a contemporary master (Plato is supposedly painted after the likeness of Da Vinci, and Raphael paints himself as Apelles). Heraclitus is the figure in purple at the foreground sitting at a desk wearing work boots because Michelangelo was known to be a perfectionist and workaholic.
> 
> You are all amazing! Thanks for still reading all my head canons haha, all my love xxx


	26. Circles

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Distance makes the heart appreciative and tender...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A short fluffy update as peace offering for a month gone xx

The door opened and I felt the blood rush back into my cheeks, burning and tingling— to match the fluttering anticipation in my chest.

 

It was nearing spring, the liminal, teetering moment that could become a light shower or threaten to snow again. But as such, everyone was getting ready to start serious research as term came to a close. Research symposiums were a necessary part of the job and as interesting as one could imagine they were, but for its duration I was distracted with counting the hours till I could be back in Elio’s arms. Despite the pent up desire that could no longer be ignored coursing through my bloodstream, I appreciated the brief period away. It was a briefer period than the last and, of course, its surrounding conditions were much less distressing. This way, I could really _think_ about Elio rather than itching to return his smooth skin and warm breath to where it belonged beneath my touch.

 

The hotel bed had smelt fresh and clean but of foreignness, and having to remember the scent of Elio on his pillow, between the sheets, and in my arms made me realise how far we had come and that he was such a staple in my life that I had almost begun to take it for granted. Take for granted, not that he would be with me, but that we knew each other this way at all. That my time could be split into before knowing his lips, his skin, his cock, his body, and after. How long had I wanted, almost to the point of bursting, to know his body? After we had broken the flood gates, and with the five years of torture, there was no way we would ever stop craving the other. I was reminded of what it had felt like to wait— suitably and temporarily detached, it was almost like the month or so in that first summer during which I wanted him so much that I could vividly imagine his taste on my tongue, and the salt from his back between my fingertips.

 

There was no telltale smell of coffee, no record playing, no rhythmic tapping of the typewriter, or music from the piano or his newly acquired secondhand guitar. It was only early Sunday evening, but when I found Elio he was in bed: tucked in neatly with the sheet just below his bare shoulders. He never slept neatly, and he seldom slept so late into the day— perhaps this was a deliberate gift for me to open?

 

Only toeing off my shoes, I eased onto our bed as daintily as I could. I could feel the heat from his body, and there was that familiar tug in my hands and gut as I felt the need to touch him and make palpable the closeness and oneness I felt in my soul.

 

I traced his lips with my finger, again, this time meditating on what my world would be like if I was never allowed to kiss them again— rather than the moment I decided to dip into indulgence and allow myself to loosen the reigns. But in that, I realised my heart still thudded low in my chest and knotted my stomach each time in anticipation.

 

Elio’s face slowly spread into a smile and then his lashes fluttered as he opened his earth-shatteringly clear green eyes.

 

“My very own sleeping beauty.” 

 

He grinned, with his little scrunched nose, at my sentimentality.

 

“Will you kiss me first this time?”

 

I smiled, his words and the memory tugged at my heart, and bent to hold his cheek and press my lips to his eager, cherry-red ones. Despite my intention to exercise self-restraint and prolong the unique opportunity to intellectualise my desire and recognise the process of submitting to his magnetic current, I ended up laying half on top of him.

 

“Better now?”

 

“Why aren’t you naked or under the covers?” He whined. I grinned and smoothed back his curls, him continuing to pout. He could have made a move himself, but of course my Elio always loved a good game. 

 

“Straight to business, hmm? I don’t get an ‘I missed you’ or ‘I love you?’” I teased, and he bit the finger I had run along the seam of his lips. He spread his legs under the covers and nudged my side.

 

“There’s ample evidence, if only you’d get under here with me.”

 

I glanced down, noticed the enticing telltale bulge, but continued to hold out. I pressed the barest of kisses to the corner of his lips, then his jaw and just below his ear.

 

“Did you touch yourself?” I asked quietly.

 

“Yes.” 

 

The way he breathed the word almost shattered all of my resolve.

 

“Did you think of me?”

 

“Of course.” His pupils were blown out and focused on my lips. “I tried to finger myself, but nothing is as good as your thick, wet cock inside of me.”

 

In that moment of shared gaze, we both realised how easily and how well Elio managed to flip the tables and catch me at my own game. I lowered my face again, and he strained to get his lips to touch mine, but I pulled back just quick enough. Running my lips down the edge of his jaw, I kissed the spots I knew he liked on his neck, and finally back to his ear only to bite the fleshy lobe.

 

“I want you,” I said lowly and his breath hitched deliciously. “To ride me.”

 

That finally did it, and he almost pushed me off the bed with the force of him sitting up. He threw the covers toward the foot of the bed and began furiously undressing me, and I let him, all while grinning. He shoved me until I was sitting against the headboard and straddled my lap, his fingers curled in my hair and lips pressed forcefully against mine. I finally went to grasp the base of his cock through his briefs, and our lips came apart as his groan turned into a sob. It was at that point that I realised he had been wearing a pair of my briefs all along, and it was my turn to groan. 

 

“You remember,” I breathed, and the way he kissed me after said ‘of course’ a thousand times over.

 

There was no time for teasing, then, and as he slipped me inside of him, the oblivion of pleasure we created between us took over. We were kissing and moaning, hands grasping, and holding each other close in a way no other position could allow. 

 

“I love you, I love you,” Elio was repeating over and over and with the way his body enveloped my cock, the way his words enveloped my heart, the way my arms enveloped him in turn, neither of us had any chance of lasting.

 

 

Later, I must have fallen asleep, I woke in Elio’s arms with my head on his chest, and he was gazing at me wistfully. 

 

“What’s wrong?” I whispered and smoothed the arc of his cheekbone with my thumb, that always comforted him. He only shook his head and rearranged us so he was burrowed in my arms.

 

“You’re not sick of me again?” I joked only to get him to speak.

 

“I will never be sick of you,” he murmured and pressed a kiss to my throat as one of his fingers circled my nipple. He looked up at me, his eyes a soft, wide pool. I loved his playfulness, but the way he so easily peeled away pretence and revealed himself like this made me fall harder and further for him, and I knew I would never stop.

 

“You were also thinking about our first time.” 

 

“Being away reminded me of what it felt like to be waiting and aching to touch you,” I replied.

 

“It meant so much to me when you came down for breakfast wearing my suit,” Elio had moved to whisper it against my ear, and I grinned because I had indeed known even then but it was different to hear it aloud and so long after. 

 

"I can still picture the lust in your eyes when I sat next to you." I said, and he laughed breathily against my neck. After a while I held his jaw so he would look me in the eye.

 

“ When you rode all the way into town— you were it for me. I knew it, even then, and it scared me because I thought I could never have you.” I said, and we both spared a beat of silence to remember the pain and dread. 

 

“But you’re not afraid anymore,” he murmured. I shook my head and he brought his lips to mine sweetly. 

 

“Good,” he said and reached down between us to grasp my dick. “Now, fuck me again.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ahhh happy to be back, my loves! Thanks for bearing with me, plot will continue moving again soon, but nothing like a bit of sensual and sentimental Elio/Oliver to get back into the swing of things xx


	27. Do I Know You?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "...Oye no me hagas pasar un mal rato, no, no..."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the disappearance, writer's block is real!! Wish I could get that chapter-a-day level inspiration back! Anyway, am finally happy with how this chapter turned out and hope you like the little arc I’ll be putting in place, love as always xxx
> 
> [Yo No Soy Guapo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yIqBUCGh_UA) by Eddie Palmieri

The Sunday afternoon following my revelations was sun-drenched. The smell of someone’s barbecue and the sounds of Eddie Palmieri wafted over with the breeze, and I was hit with a pure fondness for the City. It recalled a different part of me, that initial period when I moved for myself— of feeling simultaneously alone but in solidarity with so many others who were seeking the same truths. I would not call myself a veteran now, per se, but I was far enough along that I could look back and see where I had started.

 

“I wish we could go swimming.” I mused aloud. We were lounging on the fire escape again, and I was gifted with a glimpse of Rome-Elio— in the way he appraised me freely from behind his sunglasses and the blasé manner in which he was balancing his Camel between his fingers.

 

“We do have the tub.” 

 

I snorted at the suggestion.

 

“ _You_ barely fit in it, my friend.”

 

“That’s why you’ll just have to hold me very, _very_ close.” He punctuated his proposition with a breathy laugh and playful nudge of my foot.

 

He managed to plead and pout until I agreed to give it a try. We rearranged limbs and slid and slipped and made awkward noises where skin rubbed enamel. While Elio was determined to keep going I could not help but laugh on the third occasion of his knee squawking against the base of the tub as he attempted a sultry brush up against my crotch.

 

“See, I told you. Unless we turn into geese within the next minute— this might be the only music you ever play that _won’t_ do it for me.” I concluded, and pulled us both to our feet. Inexplicably, it was then that Elio finally broke into laughter and pressed his face into my chest in attempt to stop himself.

 

“What?” I was bewildered, but found myself laughing too because his breath on my skin felt like a succession of blown raspberries. I had been joking, but had it really warranted such a reception?

 

Finally, he sobered and kissed me, still grinning ear to ear.

 

“ _Goose_.”

 

 

In spite of the sweet moments we still had, we were increasingly spending time apart as I had to stay at the department with dissertation concerns, exam preparation, planning for the next academic year ahead and more. Elio was in the thick of his writing, and despite my attempts to help he insisted that it was not yet ready for reception. We had plans to return to Crema and the villa for the summer, and in anticipation Elio was trying to write as much as possible such that he could stay on schedule but also be ready for the scrutiny, not of his father, but the Professor Perlman. Neither of us said it aloud, at least not yet, but I thought we both recognised that he, in a way, would be taking my previous role. 

 

It had been almost two weeks of little quality time, and our final obstacle before our agreed-upon weekend of relaxation was my obligation to attend the thirtieth birthday party for Avery with our old group of roommates. Avery had always been the rowdiest— he had been my best poker companion and aside from playing the actual tables insisted on keeping a personal score between the two of us. 

 

Elio decided that he would go to Germain’s: he did not want to wait idly at home, nor was his accompanying me viable or even the least bit appealing to him. We set off that night together but in separate ways.

 

“I’ll pick you up from Germain’s in the morning, if necessary.” I told him, and he scoffed at me.

 

“You are the one going out on the town with your crew, but fair.” He sassed and pressed a quick kiss to my lips before slinking off to the subway, in the black shirt that clung to him deliciously with the static of the cold weather.

 

 

I arrived at the designated restaurant, according to the usual order. No matter the function, if we had not travelled together, Scott always arrived fifteen minutes early, I on time and Avery and Nathaniel appeared to come and go based on their whims even when the gathering had been their suggestion or in their celebration.

 

Aside from sporadic get-togethers such as these, at birthdays and the odd celebration we now mostly communicated by phone. The three of them were older and Avery was last to reach thirty. He already had a toddler, Nathaniel’s wife was due to give birth in the next month, and Scott to be married in October. A decade on, they were no longer the reckless, impulsive idiots that I had lived with— at least, not on the surface.

 

As I was directed to our table, Scott turned his head and stood to greet me with his usual handshake and pat on the back.

 

“Monsieur Olivier,” he grinned, as per the usual greeting. For lack of better judgement and the itch for reinvention at the age of nineteen, I had briefly considered going by the French variation of my given name. Scott had egged me on just to see how far I would have deluded myself, but the others had been certain in their belief that if combined with a convincing enough accent that the change would help me meet more women. 

 

“And how have you been these months?”

 

“Fine, fine. I should be asking you that, groom-to-be. I suppose planning and organising hasn’t been easy?”

 

I made the conjecture based on the dull film over his usually impeccable and shiny appearance and expression— Scott always appeared poised and self-possessed, at least to the public, but it seemed he had let his guard down just enough for it to be noticeable. He sighed and swilled the scotch he had already ordered.

“Later,” he gave a tight smile. “We’ll save it for when we’re all drunk enough.”

Not long into our only slightly evasive smalltalk, Nathaniel and Avery arrived together, loud and arms linked.

“Well, boys, we’ve decided we’re going to get very drunk tonight and the two of you have no choice because neither of you are on the impending brink of fatherhood.” Avery announced loudly with no other greeting, and that was that.

The way that we consumed both food and alcohol was, perhaps more appropriate to a bachelor party, and as per usual Avery only exacerbated circumstances by turning it into a competition. Because of the years we lived together and the ways we behaved during that time, it was second nature for us to know the exact words that pushed the right buttons and got everyone as drunk as possible.

“Oh, c’mon, blondie, don’t go soft on me here! This chow not good enough for you? Don’t tell me you’re not still too vain to eat anything not cooked by your own gourmet hands?” An ongoing joke from our years living together was that I rarely agreed to eat food not cooked by me, and I had explained and continued to maintain that it was a simple consequence of being broke and cooking my own meals was much cheaper.

“Okay, okay, I’ll do it for you on the occasion of your making it to middle age,” I replied, and the table erupted into jeers at the age-old age gag.

It was clear by the time that we were ordering dessert that the night had devolved, and Avery and Nate were already too drunk to do much else.

“Well, you know, Scotty we pick this place every time for a reason— you’re never drunk and live only a block away.” Avery slurred, and that was our cue to leave as the staff grew increasingly impatient with our raucousness.

With Avery draped over me and supporting none of his own weight, and Scott in a much similar position with Nathaniel, we hobbled the block and a half’s walk to Scott’s apartment.

The furniture and appliances that he had installed were monochrome, all sleek and black and white, but the walls were a warm orange and the kitchen walls paved with floral tiles. He hadn’t had the time or money to replace these when he first moved in, and it became an odd part of the home and of him.

With Nathaniel and Avery safely deposited on the couches and both falling to a reliable alcohol-induced slumber, we made our way to the kitchen.

“So? How drunk are we gonna have to get for this one?”

Scott smiled bitterly, retrieved a new bottle of wine from a cabinet and slid to the floor with his back against his fridge.

“Few more glasses and I’ll be properly juiced up to say it out loud.” He said and patted the patch of cold tile next to him. How many times had we done this for each other?  Nights we’d shared like this, with liquor of a much cheaper quality, after long, endless shifts at work at the same time as writing coursework. Nights of heartbreak, of quiet solidarity— or even, in our youngest years, nights of tears because we had no one else who would listen. It seemed Scott and I were held together by these nights, each the other’s witness in the dark, of secrets that could not be spoken otherwise.

“I worry about you sometimes, you know. I mean, look at you, you’re doing great. But— I still do, sometimes.” Drunk and sentimental fatherly-Scott was one of his most endearing personas.

“I thought we were talking about you. You opening with this has me even more worried.” He chuckled.

 

“You’re happy, right?”

 

“Yes.”

 

“Good. Because I haven’t seen you like this since that time that senior finally slept with you.” I laughed but winced at the memory of the months-long pining and bad flirting I had engaged in before the girl finally agreed to date me for a grand total of three weeks.

 

“Do you regret breaking it off with Mar?” I was taken slightly aback, but I supposed it was as natural a question as any.

 

“Of course not. She’s happier, I’m happier. Even if El— even if the person I had been waiting on hadn’t come back, at least Marilyn is with who she’s supposed to be with.”

 

“Are _you_ with who you’re supposed to be with?” Scott was now much quieter and pensive, and, as I feared, he was likely trying to breach the topic of not being ready to be married.

 

“Yes. And I can’t imagine it any other way.”

 

“So Mar broke up with you because…” I nodded my confirmation of his inference.

 

“You never told me about her, what’s she like?”

 

The familiar combination of my stomach knotting and churning at the same time started up. I had barely been truthful with myself regarding my sexuality when we all lived together and, as it turned out, I was still antsy around them whenever the topic was remotely approached. The way they each talked about women scared me away from even thinking about mentioning men. Though we had had a night of solidarity like this when I had broken up with Marilyn, they hadn’t asked the real reason and I hadn’t told. I decided, belly half full with wine, that this would be as good a time as any.

 

“He,” I began, and watched for Scott’s reaction. He only held very still, and stared at the wine glass he had put on the floor between his knees. “His name is Elio. And he’s everything I… ever imagined life could be like.”

 

A deafening lull.

 

“You never said.”

 

“I know.” I tried to catch his gaze, but he maintained his eye contact with the floor. “It wasn’t even something I wanted to admit to _myself_ , then. You know?”

 

“I’m sorry you felt like you couldn’t say so before.” 

 

I shrugged and looked away, intentionally vague, because I appreciated his sentiment but it did not change the pressure I had felt. Despite our being, perhaps, closer to each other than to Nathaniel and Avery—and they to us— I had always felt the need to impress Scott and remain in his favour, living up to some invisible expectation he had of me. He was always impeccable in dress and speech, cultivated an air of mystery with his inbetween-ness— hair between blonde and brown, his eyes between blue and grey, his gaze always oscillating between measured amusement and scrutiny— and the way he held himself, spoke about his expertise gave me something, someone, to learn from and work towards. Wanting to continue to fit into his world, his vision of perfection, was all I had wanted to do during college— and my various and occasional experimentations were always kept away. Perhaps the bigger factor was still my own self-imposed quandaries, but the way I thought of Scott fed into it.

 

“Did you ever think of trying?”

 

“Sure,” I replied. “But I didn’t. Because I didn’t think I could deal with losing everything, you lot being part of that.”

 

“You wouldn’t have lost me, Oliver.” At that, I finally managed to catch his eye, and the Scott that I was seeing now had as many of his masks peeled back as I ever could have imagined. His eyes were tired and pained, like they had nowhere left to run, nowhere left to look— we were facing each other now.

 

“You were always telling me to go after some girl. I know you didn’t mean anything by it but—” 

 

“God, I’m so stupid.” Scoff laughed humourlessly and scrubbed his face in frustration.

 

“You couldn’t have known.”

 

“But I did!” It was my turn to be confused. “I’ve had it happen to me all my life and I did it to you.”

 

Despite the throbbing in my ears and the flush of warmth on my skin because of the wine, my blood ran cold.

 

“You…”

 

“Yes.”

 

“Is that what’s come between you and Kat?”

 

He let out a shuddering breath, head in his hands and gripping at his hair. Amongst all that, I made out a brief nod.

 

“Oh, Scott.”

 

“I suppose we have or had the same problem. Did Mar find out about…?”

 

“She knew by the end. But there'd been so much that wasn’t working. I was hiding from myself, from her, and I would have probably gone through with it if she hadn’t broken it off herself.”

 

Another beat of silence, another sigh.

 

“That’s not much help.”

 

“I guess not. I’ll tell you now that I wish I’d done it and put us out of our misery sooner.”

 

“That’s the thing. I love Kat. We work better than most. But I go to sleep and wake up every night and every day feeling more and more dread because this isn’t supposed to be _me_. We took the wedding invitations to a calligrapher the other day— Scott and Kathleen written over fifty times on paper in different _fonts_. Fonts, Oliver! Picking some damn handwriting to represent our relationship when the relationship doesn’t represent me, imagine that!”

 

Scott let out a series of hysterical laughs before drowning them in a few gulps of wine, directly from the bottle.

 

“I understand what you’re going through, man.”

 

“But do you? You never got to staring down the barrel, a fully planned wedding that’s supposed to take place in six months!”

 

“No, but—”

 

“But what, Ol? I should be true to myself? It’ll ruin me— and her— forever. What can I even say to her as explanation? Oh, God— that I’ve been lying this entire time? That I was hoping the doubts would just go—”

 

“Shut up, Scott!”

 

Despite the heated moment, we both paused and realised our rising voices could have woken up the other two, but still managed to make out two distinct patterns of snoring.

 

“You think I don’t know? We broke up and I had to answer a year’s worth of questions— why did we break up and how could I let Marilyn get married to Josh so soon after. So yes, it was hard. But guess what was harder? I came out to my parents and my dad assaulted both my boyfriend and I, so yes! I think I have at least the smallest right to advise you here!”

 

Scott’s draw had dropped as soon as I said ‘came out’ and he had still not managed to close it.

 

“When did you do it?”

 

“The Christmas break.”

 

“And how do you feel now?”

 

“It was the worst thing at the time, but I’ve never felt freer.”

 

“I wish I’d known. You parents are— well, your parents.”

 

I chuckled, and we shared a moment of mirth as reprieve from the main thread of conversation. Scott had been there with me in the thick of it during my early 20s, and my experience now should serve as good a testament as any.

 

“I’m not saying you need to do all of this at once. But what you do know is that you don’t want to be married.”

 

Scott exhaled loudly through his nose, and now instead leant his head back against the fridge with his eyes closed.

 

“This is going to sound selfish as all hell.” He said quietly, almost as a whisper, almost to himself. “But I… I’ve never let myself go and tried…”

 

“Experimented?” I supplied.

 

“Experimented— sure. How do I know for sure that I… _am_. And that I’ve not thrown away everything, broken Kat’s heart for nothing.”

 

It was my turn to sigh. I understood him because that had been the very reason for my explorations, to make sure, using fleeting, unattached, cerebral trials with strangers. But it was also one of the most heartbreaking questions there were.

 

“I can’t encourage you to cheat,” I said. “But look at it this way— it keeps you awake at night that you’re doing the wrong thing. That thing you feel from the tips of your toes to your racing heart. Surely that’s something?”

 

“I suppose.” He mumbled. “How did you know?”

 

I laughed, of discomfort and embarrassment.

 

“I don’t know about you, but I suppose I’ve always liked both men and women. I wasn’t sure about men till— till,”

 

“Well?”

 

“Promise not to laugh or hold it against me?”

 

“Pinky swear,” Scott raised the now almost empty wine in his right hand and his raised left pinky.

 

“It was you.” Perhaps it was the alcohol, perhaps it was that our heart-to-heart tonight had been particularly no holds barred— or even perhaps my recent getting used to having to tell truths and secrets about my past, but I felt no qualms.

 

“Do you remember that day you tapped me on the shoulder when I was looking at ads on the noticeboard on your campus? I turned and you said, ‘you’re looking at mine, kid’, with this big grin, all your teeth showing. You knocked a bit of the air out of my lungs.” I had been smiling to myself in my reminiscence, and only after my confession realised the subject of my secret was sitting right next to me. I turned, and I had expected Scott to be amused by the memory, too, but his expression was unreadable and certainly less than impressed.

 

“It was me?”

 

“Yeah, I suppose. The first time I realised I thought about men that way, too.”

 

“Did you have a crush?”

 

An embarrassed laugh bubbled forth, and I could not remember the last time I had made such a timid sound.

 

“Only for a short while.”

 

“I know.” I turned to look Scott in the eye now, despite the redness I knew had hued my face.

 

“And I thought I had hid it so well.” I said. I supposed making light of a decades-old memory was the only right way to go.

 

“And you had.” The surprise in my chest pressed higher, still. “But probably the second time Nat and Ave got you drunk, that first month you moved in, you kissed me before I could stop you— it was while I was taking you back into your room because you were so gone.”

 

And just like that, I was nineteen again. That particular incident had occurred the first time I had managed to get black-out drunk— but even six glasses of whatever witch’s brew they had given me in, I remembered the anxiety I felt in my fingertips and in the strain of my back as I fought to sit up straight and make a good impression, head cocked at the slightest angle to keep the then-long bangs in a flattering position. 

 

“That’s why you avoided me for three weeks after,” I finally realised.

 

“I didn’t know how to address it or if you were really going to try to start anyth— I didn’t know what to make of it either. I suppose that was my moment, that I realised I was… different.”

 

Add that morsel to the list of things I had found out tonight.

 

“How long did the crush last?” His tone was playful, and I dreaded the possible future teasing.

 

“Not long, don’t worry, you’re not my type.” Scott laughed.

 

“And what is?”

 

“Short women, and curly-haired brunette men.” I replied, and he seemed to get a kick out of the sheer dissonance of hearing me speak about men in the same sentence as women. Despite myself, my chest warmed as I thought of Elio and his unruly mane.

 

“Do you suppose I have one, too?” He laughed. “Brunettes like Kat, but blonds like you?”

 

“I suppose my crush wasn’t all that unrequited,” I joked, but when I turned to look at him, again, his smile had fallen. And in turn, mine.

 

“It wasn’t.” Scott said softly. My heart pounded in my chest as the dissonance reached me— I thought simultaneously of how our friendship had gone all these years, recontextualising the way we spoke and the things we said, the handshakes, the hugs, and the looks.

 

“What are you saying, Scott?” It could have been the intoxication, it could have been my distraction, but I realised that his face was a lot closer than I had thought.

 

“Will you let me kiss you just once, so I can be sure of…?”

 

That sensation of momentary panic of touching something frozen and having the skin of your fingertips stick to it happened to my heart, and I pushed away before staggering up to my feet.

 

“I can’t do that, Scott.”

 

“For old times sake. Please, it would be helping.”

 

“It’d be— I can’t— I have Elio. And you have Kat. At least— I’m leaving.” Before he could say anything or make it to his feet, I turned and went to the front door as fast as my limbs would take me, stubbing my feet on the couch and the lamp in the process.

 

“Wait, Oliver, I didn’t mean— I’m sorry—,”

 

 

The door slammed shut behind me, and the echo of the sound rang in my ears the whole way home.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let me know what you thought!! Thank you for bearing with me xx


	28. As It Is When It Was

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The threads of fate tangle and knot, up is down, then is now...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Title comes from New Order song of the same name (it doesn't 100% fit the sentiment of the chapter, just borrowing the poetic phrasing).

Despite my state of drunkenness and general confoundedness, I woke early and with the sun. I hadn’t bothered to make it to the bed— besides, I did not feel I deserved to be in it just yet.

 

I could not have slept more than a few hours, but a pulse of adrenaline and anxiety animated me enough to remove myself from the couch. Since the night before, I had felt an urge to throw up because of the pure _strangeness_ of the situation. It hadn’t been the usual and to-be-expected wash of nostalgia that came with reminiscing with the group; Scott’s revelations brought me so viscerally back to that age, those idiotic thoughts, the feelings that at the time threatened to overwhelm— and they _did_ overwhelm me now. Not because I was living as that me, rather certain narratives I had lived by and lived in, had used for so long to explain myself to _myself_ , had become tangled. Not that they were previously all combed out: little things in life run perfectly linearly but least of all desire and love.

 

And now, being back in the house, in a situation so clearly now while feeling so clearly then, I felt like some kind of imposter betraying the ghosts of my Christmas past, present and future all at once.

 

I should have seen through the facades and the cracks— I should have been better than that, and more so I should have seen it in my friend. To think I had, and still did to some extent, prided myself on being able to suss people out!

 

I took my coffee and cigarettes out to the fire escape, greeted with the sun barely shining through the clouds, casting a pale glow on the still-silent street below. Sipping at my at-best-standard espresso, I felt the consuming feeling of guilt rise in my chest and begin to take the shape of Elio— that is, feeling like I _would_ be doing something wrong if I did not tell him immediately. Before the memory of Marilyn reprimanding me could finish playing out in my head, I headed out the door and toward the subway, ready to rip off the proverbial band-aid.

 

Arriving outside the less than safe apartment block in which Germain and Robin now lived, I was once again puzzled by how they had managed together in the first place. With Elio’s absent mindedness when it came to housework and Germain’s general laissez-faire attitude to practical concerns, I could only imagine what their living situation looked like in Rome.

 

One rap on the door, silence. Another, more silence. I should have known to arrive later, there was no way that they could be awake this early. I was halfway to a third knock when the door opened to reveal a dishevelled Robin.

 

“Oliver.” He smiled briskly and stepped aside to wave me in.

 

“Robin. I didn’t think any of you would be awake enough to answer the door.” I replied. Robin was tense, I could tell, but over what, remained to be seen.

 

“Oh, no worries. That’s more Germain’s scene, not mine. Elio’s just through here.” He took me through to the living room, where Elio was draped across, legs splayed, an arm over his eyes.

 

“Oliver,” he sounded in a pained moan, immediately and efficiently tugging at my heart. “It’s too early, but I want to go home so you’ll have to carry me.”

 

“How much did you have?” Elio removed his arm from his eyes and reached out both toward me, wordlessly asking to be sat upright.

 

“Not as much as you, you look like hell,” was his immediate reply and I had to laugh.

 

“Yet here I am to pick you up, aren’t I a saint?” I said as he wrapped himself around my torso.

 

“I’ll see you two, then.” Robin sounded off as we headed for the door.

 

“You’ll be alright with—” Elio began, and Robin quickly shook his head and pressed a finger to his lips.

 

“Don’t worry. I can handle it.”

 

With some more pauses for expressions of protest on each of their parts, Robin resorted to pushing us out of the door, and calling a final goodbye out to me.

 

“What was all that about?” I asked.

 

“Later,” he said with his face against my bicep. “I’m too tired and I don’t want to ruin our planned day of serenity.”

 

The events of last night sank even lower in the pit of my stomach, but with Elio like this I couldn’t bear to ruin our plans on top of whatever had happened to him last night.

 

Resorting to a cab, we made it home in record time and Elio pretended the coffee I made was as good as his.

 

“I wanted to make some so you wouldn’t have to but I suppose the quality leaves something to be desired,” I said. Elio smiled and came closer, trapping me against the counter. He pressed himself slowly against me, crotch to chest, there was no more overt a cue for what he wanted next.

 

“It does the job,” he murmured and pressed himself close to nuzzle my neck. “I love when you don’t shave first thing in the morning.”

 

I let him run his lips over my neck and jaw. When he finally pulled back, his lips were swollen and red, the smooth skin on his chin and jaw on their way there. He was devastatingly beautiful and goading me into this haze of amorousness— but when he went to kiss me, my instinct was to turn away.

 

“Elio,” I held the back of his arms in caution.

 

“What?” His gaze was unfocused and directed in the general direction of my neck and the buttons he was trying to undo close to my neckline.

 

“Please, stop for a second.” I said, and at that he snapped out of it. I had not refused him like this since the time he had first tried to kiss me.

 

“What’s happened?”

 

“Something happened last night and I need to tell you about it.”

 

He wavered for a second and I could see on his face as he came out of the want and into a conclusion-jumping-prone state. His eyes darted back and forth though his gaze was still on the ground and he took a step back as if to take me in.

 

“Go on,” he said. I had gone into this thinking that I would be able to spit it out; first, because I was determined to be transparent, and second because there was no one else I could tell this to who would be able to understand— but the look on Elio’s face told me there was low probability of coming out of this without some kind of argument.

 

“It’s about… Scott.”

 

“The old roommate who used to be in publishing but is at Morgan Stanley now, yes.”

 

“He came out to me.” The feeling of chewing and exhaling around the words in my mouth as I said them seemed out of body. In executing those sounds, I had made the incident _real_ and it felt even more odd than it had at the time. Elio was taken aback, the tension in his face disappearing as he digested the information.

 

“Wow,” he breathed out. “I can’t imagine—”

 

“That’s not all of it. I started giving him advice and he asked me how I knew I was… and I said it was when I met him that I fully realised. Then he asked me if we could kiss so that he could be sure and I said no.”

 

There were four beats of stone cold silence before Elio took a further step back, spun around and sat at the kitchen table.

 

“He was the one who... ” he repeated to himself. “And you said no?”

 

“Yes, of course.”

 

I couldn’t read the minutiae of the collection of microexpressions that flitted across his face, and my heart began to beat faster in dread of what he would say next.

 

“I’m surprised.” He said this as he finally looked up and looked me in the eye again, except now completely cold. “I wouldn’t put it past you.”

 

“Excuse me?” It came out louder than I had intended but it fit, and only seemed to make him bolder and more resolved.

 

“Think about it. You started loving me when you still cared for Marilyn, you strung Chiara along all the while during that, and then you went back to loving Marilyn when you still cared for me.”

 

“I’ve never _cheated_ , I would never do anything to disrespect—”

 

“Technically! Only technically! You like to pretend you’ve got things compartmentalised and clean but you’re just as muddled and sentimental as anyone else!”

 

“What are you _really_ trying to say?” I could hardly believe what we were speaking —yelling— about, and the rise of hurt in my chest was quick becoming defensive anger, the incredulity turning into yelling, but I tried to maintain my patience.

 

“You don’t even realise! He was your first love and you mentioning it with guilt written all over your face means you still care for him!”

 

“He wasn’t my first lo—”

 

“But he was your first _something_! And you haven’t denied that you still care.” Tears started flowing, and he tried to wipe them away angrily but they continued to stream down and he resigned himself to crossing his arms across his stomach.

 

“What a thing to say! I put it down a long, _long_ time ago.”

 

“Is it like when you told yourself you could have gone on that summer not talking to me? Not touching me? Not finding out what could have been?”

 

“It’s not the same, and you know it.” I could see now how he put that together, but didn’t he understand by now— by _now_ , after all that we’d been through, that I had signed my heart away to him and thrown it at his feet for whatever he wanted to do with it? That it had been done _for_ me the moment I had met him?

 

“Isn’t it? You went into _us_ thinking it could never work but caved anyway, weren’t we for all intents and purposes an experiment to you, too? Just that you didn’t expect to come away from it the way you did and the fact I gave us a second chance? And now _he_ —”

 

The accusation pierced through me and I had to look away for how Elio had managed to pull the rug from under my feet.

 

“What about you and Marzia? Or you and whoever _Paolo_ is? _All_  of your men and women in Rome?” Pettily, I dragged them in before I could stop myself, and Elio laughed almost maniacally.

 

“There we go! You were jealous when I told you and you’re _still_ jealous— even when you said you understood it was just a fact of life, you’re jealous because you _do_ know how this all works! Because you still care about Scott! 'People before and people after', my ass! You've never properly put anyone you truly loved down.”

 

“How can you say—”

 

“Stop! Just stop, Oliver. Think about what you’re really saying and what you really think. How many times have you denied something and realised there was more truth to it than you originally thought?” Elio’s raised voice lowered into something much quieter and softer— tired. Tired of me. In a way that was beyond his years and that certainly made me feel like a chastised child.

 

“I— Elio. Please,” I began to say, and then a telltale red trickle started appearing on his upper lip to join the wetness of his tears. “Elio, you’re—”

 

“I know, I know! Don’t touch me.” He held his nose with one hand to stop the flow from getting all the way down his face and neck, and with the other opened the fridge to get himself ice.

 

“I’m going to bed.” He muttered begrudgingly on his way out of the kitchen.

 

I recognised, on some level, that he was saying all this out of a general upset reaction— perhaps compounded with all of the small things that irked him in our daily life and the fact that this was supposed to be a relaxing weekend. But what he had said made me feel _naked_ — how and why would I feel that way if somewhere deep inside I didn't think it was a little true? There were people who I was able to brush off, and be unaffected by because they didn't hold a candle to Elio. So why had I been so unnerved to not be able to sleep in our bed, to be unsettled to insomnia and restlessness, to be so guilty that I had to confess. Damn me. 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wanted to explore this part of Oliver as it is an embedded part of the books, particularly apparent in the last section and the last scene (Oliver still married but feelings for and memories of Elio still very much alive). Slightly shorter length as it works better to break here with the next update. Let me know what you thought! xxx
> 
> Update: Hope no one is permanently upset with me for this turn in the plot haha, all shall be resolved (eventually)


	29. Hue to Hold

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nature’s first green is gold,  
>  _Her hardest hue to hold._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies for the delay!! Summer job has been kicking my butt haha, thank you for bearing with me!! xx
> 
> Title from Frost's "Nothing Gold Can Stay".

When I woke, I felt worse than I had first thing in the morning. Now, my head felt bloated, my insides felt bloated, my nose tender— and most of all, my mind bloated but buzzing with thoughts that had not gone away despite my attempt to sedate them with sleep.

 

There was no light coming from outside, it had been grey all day, but the blinds had been drawn anyway. The mild, inoffensive grey glow was unhelpful in my trying to determine how long I had been asleep. I tried shifting limbs, but the experiment only showed that I was all but a bag of bones and not ready to move just yet.

 

I looked to the side, and found Oliver sitting in a chair he had pulled up close to the bed. He had his arms crossed loosely over himself and his head lolled to one side in his sleep. I tried to look away, but before I did, tears had already begun to blur my vision.

 

Oliver. Oh, _Oliver_. How many ways had I thought and moaned and shouted and whispered and cried his name? I had said it with awe, I had said it with tenderness, I had said it with want, like he was my torturer, master and salvation in one. Now, I was saying it with hurt and reproach and disappointment.

 

I didn’t want to be, I hadn’t meant to say all those things so scathingly— but then I _had_ . I _knew_ they would hurt him. Maybe I was a sadist for it, maybe it was petty of me to do so, but the very least I wanted from him was the truth. To rouse him to realisation. Then I could move on.

 

I looked at him now, and felt my heart go tender like it was covered in bruises. When he slept, when he was upset, when he was my Oliver with no worries, cares, or pretence he looked so young, so naive, so pure. That face, _that_ Oliver hated to hurt me, hated to be apart from me. But that Oliver coexisted with others. I knew _why_ he was, now, and that complicated the ‘who’. Like roots and flowers: one and the same, part and parcel, easily split into below ground and above but seeing, knowing, and understanding where one part ended and became the other was much less simple.

 

All I knew, in this moment, was that my heart hurt and the only person I wanted to comfort me was its cause.

 

Without a second thought, I brushed off the covers and laid myself across Oliver’s lap, one arm around the back of his neck and my legs hanging off the other side. He said something incoherent as he came to, but I could tell, from the way his fingers dug into my sleep shirt, that he was awake enough for what I wanted to say.

 

“I don’t want to be angry with you,” I said, and could feel him press into the crook of my neck and nod.

 

“I’m sorry, I’m so so sorry,” he whispered.

 

“Stop. I just— I just want us to be okay right now. I’ve missed you while we’ve both been busy, and I’m too tired to— to fight you.” Tears sprang to my eyes again, though I had just dried them and vowed to stem the flow just minutes ago. One of his hands let go of my waist to wipe the tears away and stroke my cheek, like he always did, and it inexplicably only made me sob harder.

 

“I’ve missed you, too. Please, I’m so sorry I hurt you, I didn’t mean—” I stopped his rambling with a snotty, wet kiss. He continued to kiss around my face, whispering apologies in between and against my skin.

 

I brought his lips to mine and tugged desperately at the fabric of his knit jumper, trying to bring us as close as possible. Oliver read my hint and before long got up with me in his arms and deposited me on the bed. He hovered above me and kissed me hard, but made no further move. I could sense his hesitation borne out of the lingering guilt. I slid my hands up under the fabric, eliciting a shiver as skin met skin, and put my hands on his waist until he lowered his hips. With his face in my hands, I pressed fleeting kisses from the corner of his mouth to his cheek.

 

“Make love to me,” I whispered, and to my own ears sounded as broken and desperate as I felt. He pulled back to look me in the eye, as if to look for evidence in my expression that this was really what I wanted. “Please.”

 

With one more heartbeat of pause, he returned to my lips but allowed me to direct, reciprocating when I pulled him tighter. When he finally slid into me, I felt him shiver and grip at my waist, the sensation shooting straight to my heart.

 

“Fuck me deeper,” I managed to gasp out in between incoherent moans and ramblings.

 

“If you keep talking like that I’m not going to last,” Oliver groaned against my neck, but that only spurred me on. I wanted him to lose control, I wanted him to realise I owned this part of whether he was inside of me or I was inside of him— I held the power and his pleasure was at the beck and call of my words, my body and my will.

  


We parted to shower with few other words exchanged. When I made my way downstairs, I found Oliver in the kitchen plating cheese omelettes, one of my favourites of his repertoire. He shrugged a watery smile as he saw me appear in the doorway and gestured at the plates for me to sit down as he poured orange juice.

 

“What time is it?” I asked. He cleared his throat and set my glass down gently in front of me before easing into his own seat, across from me. His still-damp hair shone dark bronze, still-ruffled because he had towelled it but not set it back down again. His cheeks were still rosy from the warm shower, and the way he spun his glass around tentatively in an effort not to look me in the eye just yet.

 

“It’s just past three.” He said, louder than before but no less shy as he kept one arm over his lap and with the other picked at his food. I could see him holding himself stiffly, elbows perched on the edge of the table and yet not completely relaxed, shoulders tensed somewhere in between slouching and straight, and I decided I would be the one to end the impasse.

 

“Can I tell you what scared me most when you told me what happened?”

 

He looked up from his eggs, with an expression of concern and tenderness, and it made me hate him.

 

“Go on.” He said it softly— not in volume, but with a tone of softness like he was ready to take whatever venom I intended to spit on him.

 

“It scares me— _to the bone_ that it was random luck that I have you the way I do. And not him.”

 

For that, even I was surprised at myself. Surprised because it was a truth I had ever even dared to articulate in thought before now, even though I had known it— even though I had felt it, even though it was in ever tear I had cried and behind every kiss I had pressed to his lips when I thought he was never coming back.

 

“You know it scares me, too.”

 

“It scares me more than it does you.”

 

He knew I said it fatuously, but let me see his reaction anyway.

 

“Are you keeping score?”

 

“Are you going to stop me?”

 

“You don’t want to be stopped.”

 

“No.”

 

I decided to change tactics. “Are you angry with me?”

 

“No.”

 

“Why not?”

 

“You _want_ me to be.”

 

“I want you to care.”

 

He scoffed.

 

“I can care and not be angry.” In the brief pause, we realised the irony of the beginning of his frustration with my ultimatums.

 

“Are you angry at me for being angry with you?” I finally asked.

 

“No.”

 

“Explain.”

 

“You’re allowed to feel however you feel, it just took me aback.”

 

Almost reflexively I heaved a sigh.

 

“Do you always have to play referee?”

 

“One of us does.”

 

I looked down into my glass, at the few drops left that would never make it to my tongue even if I tipped my head all the way back, they would only coat the glass and retreat again.

 

“You think I’m being immature.” An automatic smirk graced his face— maybe he was finding the humour in the situation.

 

“I think you’ll understand better when there’s more years between you and what happened.”

 

“Are you patronising me?”

 

“No.”

 

“ _Stronzo_.”

 

“Do you want my explanation?”

 

I tilted my head briefly up and gave a pout— a nod, but not a real one so I didn’t have to say yes in any shape or form.

 

“ _We_ had an understanding on the first day. Without realising. Or, rather, something was _felt_ , and it took you longer to catch up up here.” He tapped his temple, and I stepped on him under the table as retaliation, which made him laugh. I left my foot on top of his.

 

“You understand the things I laugh at, the things that frustrate me. It confused me for so long how you didn’t know I wanted you just as badly, when you saw me so transparently in everything else.”

 

“You mean the things that matter?”

 

Oliver barked a laugh, throwing his head back, luxuriating, and when he returned had the fond smile on his face that he only bestowed upon me.

 

“I suppose we finally have all the time in the world to talk about those things.”

 

“We’re talking about them now.”

 

His smile faded as he clearly began bringing himself back down to the topic at hand from before our digression.

 

“I never had what we had with Scott. After yesterday, I guess I hardly ever knew him at all. But even before now— there was a distance. I don’t want to say I was afraid of him, but I suppose I was. Like our friendship was conditional.”

 

“Because…”

 

He intercepted my look and my meaning.

 

“Yes, but also in general. He was always polished and clean, you know. Independent, like you would be getting in his way if you spoke to him first and not him to you.”

 

“I thought that about you, too. At first. In a way.”

 

“I’m sorry.”

 

“I was trying to understand you and tried to guess what you were feeling, which Oliver you were going to be depending which color swimsuit you were wearing.” I said it casually but realised, after the fact, how much I was going to be admitting.

 

He raises an eyebrow and a smirk begins to creep its way across his lips, pooling in his right dimple.

 

“What were your hypotheses?”

 

“Red was grown-up ‘we can’t talk about those things’ Oliver.” He chuckled at that one.

 

“Yellow… happy but could turn to red quickly. Green— easy and sunny, our mornings working out in the garden.” Those made him smile.

 

“And blue… the one that wanted me.” That one wiped the mirth from his face.

 

“Scott finally let you in, you finally found out what was behind those days he was harsh to you. Like you did for me. You let me come after you. That's what scared me. Because you would be me, and he would be you." I finally found a way to say, at least by half, what I meant to say.

 

"Do you think I want— that I _could_ want anyone else outside of what we have?" I shook my head slowly.

 

“ _I_ never stopped loving you. I don’t think I ever would have. The pull of the first—”

 

“Elio. It’s the pull of what’s _real_ . We’re _real_. You terrified me because you were real, and everything and everyone I had didn’t, and could never, feel like you.”

 

I decided then to cross the impasse and seat myself in his lap to signal the end of my tantrum.

 

“Was that enough of a declaration for you?”

 

I pursed my lips and turned my face away as if declaring I was above theatricality, but we both knew he had seen through me.

 

“Which colour was your favourite?” He murmured and kissed up the side of my neck to my ear.

 

“Blue would be too obvious.” I pondered, and I felt his breath graze the shell of my ear as he laughed at that.

 

“Green, because it was rarest.”

 

“Ah, the ‘hardest hue to hold’.”

 

“I think that might be your hair, instead.” I said, and pulled on the hair at the back of his neck. His gasp turned into a moan as I began sucking a series of marks where, undoubtedly, they would be seen.

 

“I don’t think you’re having any trouble at all.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks again for waiting, and shoutout to readers old and new!!


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